Macaque stump-tailed macaque within the "M. sinica" group. Prehistoric (fossil) species: Macaque The macaques ( or ) constitute a genus (Macaca) of Old World monkeys of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. The 23 species of macaques are distributed throughout Asia, North Africa and (in one instance) Gibraltar. Macaques are principally frugivorous, although their diet also includes seeds, leaves, flowers, and tree bark, and some, such as the crab-eating macaque, subsist on a diet of invertebrates and occasionally small vertebrates. Macaques are found in a variety of habitats throughout the Asian continent, and are extremely adaptable. All macaque social groups are arranged around dominant,
White-cheeked macaque the animals caught on tape (including more prominent whiskers, thicker neck hair, and differences in the shape of the genitalia), primatologists in China declared them to be a new species. Their research, along with a series of photographs of the species, was published in the July 2015 issue of the "American Journal of Primatology". In April 2016, a group of wildlife photographers and biologists spotted and photographed the white-cheeked macaque in Arunachal Pradesh, India. Prior to this sighting, the species was thought to exist only in Tibet. Physiologically, the white-cheeked macaque is similar to the other members of the genus