Hikkaduwa Liyanage Prasantha Vinod's Image
Hikkaduwa Liyanage Prasantha Vinod (Sri Lanka) finds this serene scene of a young toque macaque sleeping in an adult’s arms.
Vinod was visiting Wilpattu National Park in north-west Sri Lanka with his family. Resting in a quiet place after a morning of photographing birds and leopards, Vinod soon realised he wasn’t alone.
A troop of toque macaques were moving through the trees above. Vinod spotted this young monkey sleeping between feeds and used a telephoto lens to frame the peaceful moment.
For Editor and Chair of the Jury Kathy Moran, this image is “so simple yet so beautiful. The infant macaque’s head is perfectly positioned against the white of the mother’s chest while the curve of the adult’s leg and the curl of the babe’s arm hold them together in this serene moment. The light is soft and inviting and perfectly captures the expression on the infant’s face.”
Toque macaques mainly eat fruit, but will also eat flowers, new leaf shoots, tubers, insects and the occasional small vertebrate.
They also adapt easily to human foods. As farming has increased in macaque habitats, so have cases of farmers shooting, snaring and poisoning them to protect their crops.
