Japan #7- Snow Monkeys

I am usually not a big fun of any zoos, but at Tokyo I insisted in visiting Ueno Zoo (上野動物園) . The reason of that was to see Japanese snow monkeys.

Here is a brief introduction of these amazing animals: the Japanese snow monkey, also known as Japanese macaque, is a terrestrial Old World monkey species that is native to Japan. They get their name “snow monkey” because they live in areas where snow covers the ground for months each year – no other nonhuman primate is more northern-living, nor lives in a colder climate. Individuals have light brown-grey fur, red faces, and short tails.

I took some photos of those beautiful monkeys climbing, jumping and running across rocks. While they were finally sitting still their facial expressions assembled a grumpy old guy, which made me laugh loudly.

The weather that day was warm without any snow on the ground. In order to see them standing in snow, I added winter effect and snowfall in photoshop.

While looking at those lovely monkeys I also noticed there is another feature associated with them: their bottoms was just as red as their faces. I almost mistaken their butts as their faces the first moment I saw them :-).