Southern pig-tailed macaque

The southern pig-tailed macaque, Macaca nemestrina, is a medium-sized macaque of Sundaland, the rainforest region that takes in the southern Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Sumatra and Bangka Island. It is also called the Sundaland or Sunda pig-tailed macaque, and in Malay it is known as beruk. Males measure about 50 to 58 cm and weigh 5 to 12 kg, while females are smaller, at 38 to 48 cm and 4.5 to 6 kg. The buff-brown coat is darker on the back and paler below, and the short tail, carried half upright, gives the animal its common name. The species is mostly ground-living but climbs well, and unlike most primates it takes readily to water. It lives in large groups that split into smaller foraging parties by day. It eats fruit, seeds, berries, fungi and invertebrates, and it disperses the seeds of some rattan palms. Until the early 21st century it was treated as one species with the northern pig-tailed, Pagai Island and Siberut macaques, which are now ranked as separate species. In Thailand, macaques of this kind have long been trained to pick coconuts.