macaque

/məˈkæk/

Other forms: macaques

A macaque is a kind of monkey that lives in Asia and North Africa. Macaques are known for their long faces and complex social behaviors.

There are more than twenty species of macaques, and they're the most widespread of the primates — you might see a macaque in Japan, Afghanistan, or India. Barbary macaques are known for their family structures, in which the males help raise and care for the babies, while rhesus macaques are so common in some cities that they're seen as pests. Macaque is French, from the Portuguese for "monkey," macaco, which was originally a Bantu word brought to Portugal from Africa.

Definitions of macaque

1. noun

   a monkey of rocky regions of Asia and Africa
   types:

   Macaca mulatta, rhesus, rhesus monkey

   of southern Asia; used in medical research

   Macaca radiata, bonnet macaque, bonnet monkey, capped macaque, crown monkey

   Indian macaque with a bonnet-like tuft of hair

   Barbary ape, Macaca sylvana

   tailless macaque of rocky cliffs and forests of northwestern Africa and Gibraltar

   Macaca irus, crab-eating macaque, croo monkey

   monkey of southeast Asia, Borneo and the Philippines

   type of:

   Old World monkey, catarrhine

   of Africa or Arabia or Asia; having nonprehensile tails and nostrils close together