Endangered
Toque macaque
Macaca sinica
The toque macaque is a reddish-brown-coloured Old World monkey endemic to Sri Lanka, where it is known as the or rilawa, (hence the English word "rillow").
Appearance
With age, the face of females turns slightly pink. The toque macaque is a reddish-brown-coloured Old World monkey endemic to Sri Lanka, where it is known as the or rilawa, (hence the English word "rillow").
Range and habitat
M. S. Sinica is found from the Vavuniya, Mannar to the lowlands of Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Puttalam, and Kurunegala, and along the arid zone of the Monaragala and Hambantota districts. M. S. Aurifrons can be found sympatrically with the subspecies M. S. Sinica within intermediate regions of the country in Kegalle and parts of Kurunegala. It is also found in south-western parts of the island in the Galle and Matara districts near Kalu Ganga.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
One study of toque macaques recorded a diet of 14% flowers, 77% fruits, 5% mushrooms, and 4% prey items. In the dry zone, they are known to eat drupes of the understory shrub Zizyphus and ripe fruits of Ficus, and Cordia species.
This signals to males that she is ready to mate. This prevents inbreeding and ensures that the current alpha male maintains his position in the troop.
In crisis
The toque macaque is listed as Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) due to habitat destruction and hunting, and also for the pet trade.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix II. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Toque macaque is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Toque macaque, Wikidata item Q669594. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
