A video camera in Indonesia has captured an interaction with one very curious monkey.
The black-crested macaque can be seen up close, making a distinctive, rapid, and subtle chattering sound that the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the organization that deployed the camera, said is “most likely indicative of a curiosity with the camera.”
At one point, the macaque even seems to try to remove the camera, which is in the Bogani Nani area of Sulawesi, an island in Indonesia. WCS has placed the motion-activated camera traps to better monitor the island’s biodiversity and help them with their conservation strategy; they’ve also captured a video of a warty pig and birds called maleos.
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“Our initial results are already providing very exciting insights into Sulawesi’s unexplored rainforests as you can see with these quirky characters showing up in the video traps,” Noviar Andayani, the WCS’s Indonesia country director, said in a statement.
The black-crested macaque is critically endangered, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and lives on Sulawesi and other islands. It’s been threatened by habitat loss and hunting.
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