Mammals

Macaque

Macaca · also called macaques

Least Concern ↓ omnivore Temperate forest Mountains Temperate grassland

A macaque is the monkey that goes everywhere. As a group, macaques range from the snowbound mountains of Japan to the temples and traffic of Asian cities to the Rock of Gibraltar — the widest spread of any primate except us. Along the way they have become the standard laboratory primate, a fixture of Hindu and Buddhist temple life, a serious crop pest, and, in a few places, a stone-tool-using shore forager.

Overview

Macaques are the genus Macaca, about 23 species of stout, mostly ground-living Old World monkeys. They are extreme generalists — fruit, leaves, roots, insects, shellfish, eggs, crops, and garbage — which is why they thrive from rainforest to snowy mountains to city centres. Troops of a dozen to over a hundred are built around lines of related females that inherit their mothers’ rank; males disperse.

Snow monkeys and tool users

The Japanese macaque lives farther north than any other non-human primate, and one troop at Jigokudani has bathed in hot springs since the 1960s — a learned tradition unique to that population. Long-tailed macaques in Thailand use stone hammers to crack shellfish, and some island groups have done so long enough to leave archaeological tool layers. The Barbary macaque is the only monkey wild in Europe.

In the lab

The rhesus macaque has been the primary research primate for a century — polio vaccine, blood groups (the Rh factor is named for it), spaceflight, HIV, COVID-19. The demand for long-tailed macaques for breeding farms is now itself a conservation concern.

Status

Least Concern as a genus but declining, with a split picture: rhesus and long-tailed macaques are abundant pests, while half the species are threatened, including several Critically Endangered ones.

Macaque: common questions

What is the difference between a macaque and a baboon?

Both are large Old World monkeys and close relatives, and the two look similar, with a fairly dog-like face, a stout body, and a lot of ground-living. The main differences are size and range. Baboons are bigger, are confined to Africa and Arabia, and mostly live in open savanna and dry country. Macaques are generally smaller, are spread right across Asia as well as North Africa, and occupy a far wider range of habitats, including forests, mountains, and cities. Baboons also have longer muzzles and more obvious canine teeth.

Why do Japanese macaques sit in hot springs?

It began with one troop. In the 1960s, monkeys at Jigokudani in the Japanese Alps started entering the outdoor hot spring pools, apparently after a young female went in to retrieve food, and the behaviour spread through the troop and was passed to later generations, so that bathing is now a tradition in that population. It helps them cope with the cold, and studies have shown that macaques that bathe have lower stress hormone levels in winter. It is one of the best-documented examples of a learned cultural behaviour in a wild animal, and only that one region's monkeys do it.

Are macaques dangerous to people?

Around temples, markets, and tourist sites, habituated macaques can be a real nuisance and occasionally a hazard. Bold individuals snatch food, bags, phones, and sunglasses, and a cornered or provoked macaque, especially a large male showing its canines, will lunge and bite. Macaque bites and scratches also carry a risk of infection, including, rarely, the herpes B virus, which is dangerous to humans, so such a bite is treated seriously. The advice at these sites is not to feed the monkeys, not to make eye contact or bare your teeth, which is a threat to a macaque, and not to carry visible food.

Why are macaques used so much in medical research?

The rhesus macaque and the long-tailed macaque are used because they are physiologically close to humans, sharing much of our immune system, reproductive biology, and brain organisation, while being relatively small, easy to house and breed, and available in large numbers. Rhesus macaques were central to developing the polio vaccine, to understanding blood groups, the Rh factor is named after them, and to research on HIV, and both species were important in testing COVID-19 vaccines. This heavy demand, particularly the trapping of wild long-tailed macaques for breeding farms, has itself become a conservation and welfare concern.

Sources & further reading

Written by HideShark Editorial Team · reviewed by HideShark Science Desk. Published September 11, 2026. Last updated September 11, 2026.

Quick facts

Scientific name: Macaca
Diet: A highly adaptable omnivore eating fruit, seeds, leaves, flowers, buds, roots, fungi, and insects, along with crabs and other shellfish, bird eggs, small vertebrates, and, around people, crops, garbage, and food taken or stolen from tourists, markets, and homes
The widest-ranging primate but one: Macaques are the genus Macaca, about 23 species, and after humans they are the most widely distributed primate genus on Earth, found from Morocco and Gibraltar across South and Southeast Asia to Japan and on many islands, the only non-human primates to reach so far north and into cold climates
Snow monkeys: The Japanese macaque lives farther north and in colder conditions than any other non-human primate, surviving winters of deep snow, and a troop at Jigokudani in Japan famously bathes in the natural hot springs, a learned habit passed down since one female tried it in the 1960s
The rhesus macaque in science: The rhesus macaque has been the main primate model in biomedical research for a century, used in developing the polio vaccine and others, in studies of the immune system, reproduction, and the brain, and in early spaceflight, and the Rh in blood types is named after it
Europe's only wild monkey: The Barbary macaque of the Atlas Mountains of Morocco and Algeria is the only monkey living wild in Europe, with a small population on the Rock of Gibraltar, and it is the only macaque with essentially no tail
Troops built around female lines: Macaques live in troops of a dozen to over a hundred, built around lines of related females that stay in their birth group for life and inherit their mother's social rank, while males leave as they mature and must work their way into a new troop
Stone-tool users: Long-tailed macaques in Thailand and Myanmar use stones as hammers and anvils to crack open oysters, snails, crabs, and nuts along the shore, passing the skill between generations, and some island populations have done it long enough to leave archaeological layers of used stone tools
Range: From Morocco, Algeria, and Gibraltar across the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia to eastern China and Japan, with an outlying group on Sulawesi and nearby islands, in almost every habitat from tropical rainforest, mangrove, and swamp to dry scrub, grassland, high mountains with winter snow, temple grounds, farmland, and city centres, from sea level to over 4,000 metres.
Conservation status: Least Concern ↓ ≈ Macaques as a group show a split picture. A few species, above all the rhesus and long-tailed macaques, are abundant, thrive alongside people in cities, farmland, and temples, and are treated as pests and sometimes culled, and the long-tailed macaque is also caught in very large numbers for the laboratory trade. Most other macaques are declining, and roughly half the species are threatened, including the Critically Endangered northern pig-tailed and several Sulawesi macaques, hit by deforestation, hunting for meat, and the pet trade, while the lion-tailed macaque of India's Western Ghats and the Barbary macaque are both Endangered. So the genus contains both some of the most successful and some of the most threatened primates in the wild