Latest update June 16th, 2026 12:40 AM
Tibetan macaque
Waterfalls Magazine – The Tibetan macaque is the largest species of macaque and one of the largest monkeys found in Asia. Only the proboscis monkey and the larger species of gray langur are bigger in size among Asian monkeys.
Males are the larger sex, commonly attaining a weight of 13 to 19.5 kg (29 to 43 lb.) and length of 61 to 71 cm (24 to 28 in) long, with a maximum record weight of 30 kg (66 lb.). Females, in contrast, weigh 9 to 13 kg (20 to 29 lb.) and measure 49 to 63 cm (19 to 25 in) long. The stump-like tail adds only 4 to 14 cm (1.6 to 5.5 in), with females having a considerably shorter tail.
Tibetan Macaque is the largest species of macaque and one of the largest monkeys found in Asia.
The fur is well-suited to the species’ cold environments, being long, dense and brown on the back, with creamy-buff to grey coloration on the underparts. Some adults are quite dark brown on the back, while others are a sandy yellowish-brown color. They have a prominent, pale-buff beard and long whiskers, but have a relatively hairless face.
The face is pale pinkish in males but is a more vivid, reddish-pink in females. The infants have silver-and-black fur that changes to its adult color at the age of two.
Studies of Tibetan macaques at Mount Emei and Huangshan Mountains, China, found the average tenure for an alpha male only lasted about one year. When troop size becomes quite large (in the 40 to 50 range) and competition grows over increasingly stretched resources, some individuals (males, females and juveniles) split from the main group to form a new, smaller group, known as ‘fissioning’, and move on to a different home range. Usually, it is the lowest-ranking individuals that will split from the main group.
The Tibetan macaque lives in mixed sex groups. In their complex social system, females remain for life in their natal group, but males disperse shortly after their adolescence (at about 8 years old). Macaque societies are hierarchical, with higher-ranking males getting better access to the resources, namely food and sexually-receptive females. Alpha males dominate the group, being those that are typically large, strong and newly mature. As they age, males tend to gradually lose their social standing and are frequently subject to challenges for dominance from other males. Such conflicts are frequently quite violent and males may kill each other in battle.
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