The Japanese Macaque has a pinkish face and posterior, no hair with this part. The color becomes red during copulation period. Baby monkeys’ face and posterior change from fresh color to pink with their growth.
A male back
Their body is covered with furry coat except their face, posterior, palm and sole. Colors of the coat can vary among shades from light bistre to dark bistre. The northern tribes have long and tightly-packed coat and the southern tribes have short and thinner coat.
Average body lengths for males are from 54cm-61cm, well-muscled and hefty and for females are from 47cm-60cm, smaller than males and roundish. Average body weights for males are between 12kg-15kg, for females are between 8kg-13kg. There is a trend that the northern tribes have larger body frame than the southern tribes.
There is a short tail in their posterior, 8cm-12cm for males and 7cm-10cm for females, and also have a pair of callus to avoid direct touch of bottom to ground when they sit down.
The numbers of their teeth are the same as human, start with 20 baby teeth and then change to 32 permanent teeth.
Males have big and sharp dogteeth which are used as a deadly weapon for fighting. Females’ dogteeth are less well -developed than males’. They have a human-like facial structure. Their eyes are expressive and can see things stereoscopically.
Ears are on both sides of their head covered with fur, hardly to see from outside.
Their faces resemble each other among family members because of the transmission so that they can recognize if he /she is a family member or not from their faces.
Hands and feet
The big difference from other animals is that monkeys have distinguishing hands and feet. Front feet (hands) have 4 fingers and a thumb, same as humans’, and can grip an object and pinch small things. Back feet also have opposable thumb and do the same things as front feet, this point is different from human.
They have lines of the palm (palmer print) on both front and back feet. They use this as anti-slip device when they climb trees.
Their nails are also same as human, flat shaped.
It is difficult to distinguish their sex from their appearances. There are not so much differences between boys and girls during their childhood. The easiest way to tell the difference is that if they have a scrotal sac or not in their groin. Or we can see nipples easily in females’ breast.
Also it is difficult to distinguish their age from their appearances. Until age 3, they become bigger year by year. After age4, because individual differences come to the front, it is impossible to distinguish their age. But it is possible if he/she is young or old. Young monkeys behave actively and have firm skin and shiny coat on the other hand old monkeys have wrinkled skin, muddy coat and crooked back and become smaller.