{"id":5096,"date":"2026-01-21T03:19:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T03:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/?p=5096"},"modified":"2026-02-08T04:49:35","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T04:49:35","slug":"thailands-stump-tailed-macaques","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/thailands-stump-tailed-macaques\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Stump-tailed Macaque, Macaca arctoides<\/em>, largest of Thailand’s macaques.<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

The Stump-tailed Macaque (Macaca arctoides<\/em>) is the largest and heaviest of the six species of macaque found in Thailand. It is not one of the more commonly encountered species. The range of stump-tailed macaques has shrunk significantly in recent decades; once widespread across Thailand it is now largely confined to Peninsular Thailand, plus a few small populations close to the south-western and far south-eastern borders of Thailand. Across it’s entire range, from North-East India to Southern Malaysia and East as far as Southern China, stump-tailed’s are classed as ‘vulnerable’ by the ICUN. In Thailand they are considered ‘endangered’ largely due to the rate of decline. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A baby stump-tailed macaque, Macaca arctoides<\/em>, closely guarded by its mother and another adult female (allmothering), feeding on grass blades. Thailand.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In other parts of Southeast Asia, hunting is thought to play a significant role. During the 1960s and 70s, large numbers were trapped in Thailand and sent overseas (primarily to the U.S.) for the biomedical trade. The export of primates was banned in Thailand in 1976. The biggest threat today, as with much wildlife in Southeast Asia, is urban development and large scale commercial crop farming, especially rubber and oil palm plantations. Stump-tailed macaques are creatures of upland primary or secondary forest. Rubber plantations, especially during the middle and latter part of last century<\/a> and, since the 2000s, the expansion of oil palm plantations (in part driven by the promotion of bio-diesel, Srisunthon and Chawchai, 2020<\/a>) have replaced much of Thailand’s original forests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Stump-tailed macaques, Macaca arctoides<\/em>, inhabiting caves within karst limestone rock outcrops, Thailand.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Stump-tailed macaques, like other macaques, are social animals. They live in troops of 10-60 or more individuals. Again, like other macaques, they are polygamous, living in multi-male, multi-female groups where both sexes will mate with multiple partners. There is a strong maternal bond with infant macaques, with weaning sometimes not completed until the young macaque is more than one year old. All adult females within the group share responsibility for caring for and protecting the youngsters, a process known as ‘allmothering<\/a>‘. Due to the promiscuous nature of macaques, young stump-tails may never know exactly who their father is, but there is some intriguing evidence that macaques are able to recognise paternal siblings through similarities in facial features<\/a>. This would make evolutionary sense in order to avoid inbreeding. Adult males tend to be heavier bult than females, they also have conspicuously large red testicles, which makes identification of the sexes relatively easy. Large testicles are an evolutionary adaptation common among species where both sexes are promiscuous. In promiscuois species sperm competition is important, so the more you produce, the better your chances of fathering offspring. In contrast, for haremic species (i.e. those where one male controls a harem of females and they exclusively mate with him) this is not so much an issue. Thus the promiscuous macaques have testicles that weigh over twice that of (haremic) gorillas, despite a large silverback weighing maybe 16 times more than a large macaque.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A stump-tailed macaque, Macaca arctoides<\/em>, mother breastfeeding a baby macaque. Thailand<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Stump-tailed macaques are primarily frugivorous – fruit eaters – but will also consume insects, worms, frogs, birds eggs and dig for tubers. At one location I watched them move on to grassy areas to eat blades of grass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Stump-tailed macaques have striking red faces that often become more black as they age<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A juvenile stump-tailed macaque sits in a tree chewing a fruit. Thailand<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If you found this post interesting, you may also like my blog on pig tailed macaques in Thailand<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other blogs of mine on Thailand wildlife include Fiddler crabs of Phuket Shores<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more stories about Southeast Asia you might like Laos Stories<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Images and text copyright Colin Munro\/Colin Munro Photography<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more stories, made to order framed wall-art canvas wrap prints, fine art prints, posters, stock images and more stories, visit my main site: www.colinmunrophotography.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I write these posts primarily because I enjoy doing so. They\u2019re free to read, and if you enjoyed reading this one I hope you\u2019ll continue to read them (maybe even subscribe to my blog). I have no plans to paywall any of them. If you feel like you want to support my time input, well \u2026 I do like good coffee.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\"Buy<\/a>\n\n\n\n

P.S I am now also on Substack <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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Fine Art Prints and ready to hang Canvas Gallery Wrap prints<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So Here’s the sales pitch. If you like my stories and images you might be interested in viewing my canvas wrap prints, fine art prints, posters, all available direct from the photographer (that would be me) stock images (and more stories) on my main site: www.colinmunrophotography.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"ColinMunroPhotography.com<\/a>
colinmunrophotography.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Stock Images<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I license many of my images as stock images for use in journals, magazines, books, websites etc. A number of my images can be found and licensed on Alamy<\/a>. You can also contact me<\/a> directly to license images. I also have a great many images not currently online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Colin<\/a>
Colin Munro Photography on Alamy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Stump-tailed Macaque, Macaca arctoides, largest of Thailand’s macaques. The Stump-tailed Macaque (Macaca arctoides) is the largest and heaviest of the six species of macaque found in Thailand. It is not one of the more commonly encountered species. The range of stump-tailed macaques has shrunk significantly in recent decades; once widespread across Thailand it is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1334,1333,1129],"class_list":["post-5096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-macaques","tag-stump-tailed-macaques","tag-thailand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5096"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5212,"href":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5096\/revisions\/5212"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colinmunrophotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}