Put this in the gallery but thought I'd drop it in here as well. I visited Bioparco last week and spotted two macaques in an off-show-but-visible exhibit between the mangabeys and mandrills. Remembering the Assam Macaques from my 2003 visit my zoo-sense was tingling, so I made sure I got a photo. Checking ISIS, except for the 80-plus group of Japanese Macaques on their rock, the zoo is listed as holding: 0.1 Assam Macaque (Macaca assamensis) 0.1 Northern Pig-tailed Macaque (Macaca leonina) Now, the Assam-typical slightly orange/golden colouration of the left-hand animal in the photo and the flattened facial features of the right-hand animal would suggest that these are those two animals, which if so makes this only my second time of seeing Assam and my very first of seeing Northern Pig-tailed (as opposed to the slightly more often-kept Southern, M. nemestrina). Is anyone able to confirm these IDs are correct? I'm particularly intrigued to know if this is really a Northern rather than Southern Pig-tailed (not sure I trust ISIS alone as a source for this!). Photo here: http://www.zoochat.com/701/macaques-bioparco-rome-15-10-09-a-111871/
Yes, this is the last of several Macaca leonina living in Rome in the 1980's. They were incidentally compared with Macaca nemestrina in a paper I published in the Journal Hystrix It. J. Mamm. in 2001. There were also five M. assamensis in the past, including possibly one M. assamensis pelops.
Wow - that's what I call an authoritative answer! Thanks colobus - that's exactly what I wanted to know.
I managed to get a couple of fuzzy photos on my visit in December: http://www.zoochat.com/701/bioparco-roma-hidden-macaques-126580/ http://www.zoochat.com/701/bioparco-roma-hidden-macaques-126579/
