As you can see, the featured image shows a young primate, looking very relaxed, on a rooftop.
Obviously, the pictured individual was well aware of my (very close) presence.
At the time – 9.26 am on 28 February 2023 – the relevant two species had a couple of dozen mutually-visible members present, in a village near Coonoor in the Nilgiri Hills, south India.
Yours truly belongs to the world’s most abundant primate species.
My photo’s subject is a wild member of one of the rarest, most endangered primate species.
Its rapidly-vanishing natural rainforest habitat is confined to small, scattered locations in India’s Western Ghats.
Allegedly, that species’ members are elusive creatures (who) usually occupy the tallest, shadowy rainforest canopies, far from human sight.
However much I loved my experience of the “endearing moment” pictured above, it was in fact a moment that should never happen – a symptom of how very desperate has become the plight of Macaca silenus, the lion-tailed macacque.
A few good questions to ask yourself, whenever you are looking at a photograph, and/or its caption:
1: What is really going on here?
2: What does this image – and/or its caption – reveal (or fail to reveal) to an observant/alert viewer?
3: Is the image – and/or its caption – deliberately seeking to mislead the viewer? (“yes” is the likely-correct answer almost every time you see a “cute”/“scary”/“inspiring” animal picture in a tabloid/ish publication)
4: Is the image – perhaps unintentionally – omitting something highly relevant that it could have included?
5: Is the image – again, perhaps unintentionally – misinforming the viewer, simply because a non-“expert” viewer is all too likely to make general assumptions, drawn from a single, perhaps-unrepresentative example? (for example, the conspicuously-magnificent, apparently-unscathed, extravagantly-maned lion on your desk calendar or screensaver. He will be an “exceptional” rather than a “typical” individual)
Later this year a multi-image post will consider lion-tailed macaques, with particular reference to the oft-spectacularly-“wrong” behaviour we witnessed on 28 February 2023.