The Yakushima macaque (''Macaca fuscata yakui'') is a subspecies of

Japanese macaque The Japanese macaque (''Macaca fuscata''), also known as the snow monkey, is a terrestrial Old World monkey species that is native to Japan. Colloquially, they are referred to as "snow monkeys" because some live in areas where snow covers the g ...

that is indigenous to

Yakushima Island is one of the Ōsumi Islands in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. The island, in area, has a population of 13,178. It is accessible by hydrofoil ferry, car ferry, or by air to Yakushima Airport. Administratively, the island consists of the town o ...

(

Kagoshima Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu and the Ryukyu Islands. Kagoshima Prefecture has a population of 1,527,019 (1 February 2025) and has a geographic area of 9,187 Square kilometre, km2 (3,547 Square m ...

). It is also known as the Yaku macaque.

Characteristics

Compared with ''M. f. fuscata'' which lives from

Honshu , historically known as , is the largest of the four main islands of Japan. It lies between the Pacific Ocean (east) and the Sea of Japan (west). It is the list of islands by area, seventh-largest island in the world, and the list of islands by ...

Shikoku is the smallest of the List of islands of Japan#Main islands, four main islands of Japan. It is long and between at its widest. It has a population of 3.8 million, the least populated of Japan's four main islands. It is south of Honshu ...

and

Kyushu is the third-largest island of Japan's Japanese archipelago, four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa Island, Okinawa and the other Ryukyu Islands, Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Ryukyu Islands, Islands ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, these individuals are smaller, stockier, have black hands and feet, and a thicker gray coat. Adults have darker fur than infants and juveniles. Adult males have a special feature called a “momoware” (split peach) which parts their hair in the center from right to left. Females bear a single offspring between March and May, every two years. Troop size is generally less than 50 individuals. The Yakushima macaque population in Yakushima Island lies at the southern limit of Japanese macaque's distribution. The current population is estimated to be somewhere between 9,500–19,000 animals, according to a survey completed in 1999.

Diet

The food available for the monkeys are based on certain factors such as temperature and availability. Feeding on young leaves, seeds, and flowers was affected more by availability, while feeding on fruits, mature leaves, and fallen seeds was affected more by temperature. Feeding on insects is strongly correlated with temperature, perhaps because availability of insects increased with temperature.

Human interactions

In the past in Yakushima, when food supplies for macaques became short, the monkeys would encroach on human habitation and damage crops; 400–500 Yakushima macaques were caught and exterminated every year due to the damage done to the

Ponkan Ponkan (Hokkien ); ''Citrus poonensis''; "Chinese Honey Orange") is a high-yield sweet ''Citrus'' cultivar with large fruits in the size of an orange. It is a citrus hybrid (mandarin × pomelo), though it was once thought to be a pure mandarin ...

and

Tanka is a genre of classical Japanese poetry and one of the major genres of Japanese literature. Etymology Originally, in the time of the influential poetry anthology (latter half of the eighth century AD), the term ''tanka'' was used to disti ...

n orange crops for which Yakushima is especially noted. The reason may be because the monkeys' broadleaf tree habitat declined due to logging and replacement of the broadleaves with conifers. Nowadays, Yakushima residents aim to coexist by protecting their crops with electric fences, rather than exterminating the macaques.

Protected status

According to the Ministry of the Environment's Red List of endangered species, the Yakushima macaque was judged “a rare species” in 1991 and “a quasi-endangered species” in 1998. But it was removed from the list in 2007 due to an increase in population. A species of Japanese monkey also inhabited

Tanegashima is one of the Ōsumi Islands belonging to Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. The island, in area, is the second largest of the Ōsumi Islands, and has a population of 33,000 people. Access to the island is by ferry, or by air to New Tanegashima Airp ...

, an island near

Yakushima is one of the Ōsumi Islands in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. The island, in area, has a population of 13,178. It is accessible by hydrofoil ferry, car ferry, or by air to Yakushima Airport. Administratively, the island consists of the town ...

, until the 1950s, when it became extinct. Whether those monkeys were Hondo macaques or Yakushima macaques is unknown.

References

External links

* Naohiko Noma�
Scientific value of the natural region of western Yakushima
Yakushima Open Field Museum Report {{Authority control Macaca Endemic mammals of Japan Primates of Asia Mammals described in 1941 Taxa named by Nagamichi Kuroda