Macaques of Tanjung Puting

Tanjung Puting was full of all sorts of monkeys and apes... in addition to the more rare proboscis monkeys, gibbons and orangutans, there were also many macaques hanging around.  This variety is the long-tailed or crab-eating macaque (when our guide told us that name, I misheard him and thought that they ate crap. oops.).  They're pretty pushy, competing with the orangutans for fruit. 

We stumbled on this group of them, chilling on near the raised walkway that leads into Camp Leakey.  One of the mothers had a little baby with her... the babies are born black and then their coat turns grey as they age:

This one macaque was pretty aggressive... I'll let the photos do the talking.  I made you a flip book to illustrate what we witnessed:

We also got to see this one take a little swim by the river's edge for a snack he saw floating by... apparently macaques are quite adept swimmers.  They like to roost in trees by the river's edge, making it easy for them to drop from the tree into the water to escape a predator or just to reach the other side.  We actually saw them doing this while we were on the boat- they dropped over 3 stories down from a tree top and then paddled across the river.

Our guide told us not to make direct eye contact with the macaques, as they see that as a threat.  This guy looks like he was trying to make eye contact with Eileen.  Or maybe she was just trying to cross all the T's and dot all the... um... lower case J's: