Monkey Business

Today, I saw a very interesting act between two monkeys. For those scientific readers, the monkeys happen to be long tailed macaque. The male monkey was eating something. Again for those scientific readers, I will explain later how I knew it was a male.  

Do you love your monkey or do you love me......

As I tried to approach to see what it was eating, the male monkey suddenly dropped the food on the ground. I knew it had to be food as the male monkey had been taking a few bites from the item it was holding in its paws. Another monkey then crawled over, picked up the food item and started eating it. The male monkey immediately jumped on the back of the second monkey and started "boning" (For the scientific readers, "boning" means making baby monkeys.) The best part of the story was that second monkey was calmly eating while the "boning" was taking place.

Apparently monkeys love session was quite short because before I could take a photo, the male monkey stopped and crawled off leaving the second monkey to continue its meal.

Why do I have to share my baby with a monkey?.....

Now, the normal readers will be puzzled as to why the monkey "boning" session was interesting to me. For those students of economics, you will recall a similar story. Monkeys were trained to use money and apparently one monkey trade the money for sex. The sex working monkey then used her payment to trade for food. I guess the monkeys that I saw today decided to cut out the middle man.

For more interesting monkey behaviour, I have a link on how monkey behave when being unequally rewarded.