Residents of Penang Island have the tendency to take the monkeys in the Botanical Garden for granted. We often marvel at the way tourists fuss over the monkeys and are seemingly overwhelmed at the sight of these little creatures. Penang residents don't give them a second glance.
The macaque, the more common of 2 types of monkeys found in the Botanical Garden in Penang, can be quite intimidating. The macaques can be quite a nuisance because they have become less frightened of people through the years and also they have become quite aggressive because people have been feeding and taunting them. If you are with a child be wary because the macaque is inclined to charge at the child if she has food in her hand. I have personally seen a troop of macaques dashing across the path of a small group of children, snatch an ice-cream cone from one of the children's hands and vanish into the bushes even before the child knew that his ice-cream cone had been hijacked by the monkey. The macaques are particularly inclined to pick on women and children!
The second type of monkey in the Botanical Garden in Penang is the langur or the leaf monkey. In the wild they live in the middle and upper canopies in the forest. They are found in South East Asia and India. They do not communicate as much as the other animals but they use loud calls to keep the troops apart. The langurs do not move around much due to their diets, they usually have to sit around to let their food digest. These monkeys are more shy than the macaques and are seldom seen on the ground. In fact a lot of Penangites have not been aware of their presence in the Garden at all. They feed on the young leaves and flowers of some of the trees in the Garden and their feeding habit is characterized by their messy "table manners", leaving a carpet of unwanted leaves on the ground. However, these monkeys are shy and mild-mannered and not at all quarrelsome, unlike the macaques. On the rare occasions when they make an appearance, even the locals are fascinated by them. While the macaques are well-known for hissing and spitting at one another, there has not been any evidence of macaques quarrelling with langurs.
2 comments:
Monkey business! So one must make sure not to eat anything at that place. But monkeys can be a menace sometimes. haha! and they know how to distinguish men from women, very inteligent huh.
very interesting... i only knew of th macaques back in the botanical gardens, didn't know we had another type of monkey spcecies there...very interesting :)
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