Snow monkey chillin' in a hot spring, Nagano, Japan (photo from Boing Boing Flickr Pool)

Photographer and Boing Boing reader appurupai shot some wonderful photos of a snow monkey (Japanese Macaque) relaxing in a natural hot spring pool in Jigokudani Monkey Park, in Nagano, Japan. These little guys are the most northern-living and most polar-living primate other than us. Contributed to the Boing Boing Flickr Pool (thanks, appurupai!)

• [LeSinge]

  What happens when they get out? I guess I have the same question in regards to polar bears as well. How do they keep from freezing?

  • [Brainspore]

    I’ve wondered the same thing since I was a kid. I often imagined a pool full of starving monkeys hoping to stick it out through Spring… surrounded by the frozen corpses of their brethren who tried to make a break for it.

  • [Bender]

    Count me as number three to wonder if and for how long they get out of the water during the winter months. Somebody tell me or I’ll be forced to look into it myself, and there will go the afternoon.

• [Anonymous]

  Jump in a hot spring with a mac-ak-ak-ak-ak-ak-ak-acque
  You outta know by now…

  (is that all you get for your monkey?)

• [Anonymous]

  Now I know where they got the idea for the rock people in Zelda: Twilight Princess!

• [Anonymous]

  How long do they stay in the hot water per visit?

  When not lounging in nature’s jacuzzi, how do they shelter (burrows maybe?)…

• [Chris Ballard]

  Looks very relaxing, but where is the Most Interesting Man?

• [Ty_MY]

  Noted undersea photographer Eric Cheng has a very good album of photos on the snow monkeys when he vacationed in Japan.. Really excellent, with descriptions:

  http://echeng.com/journal/2010/12/28/snow-monkeys-jigokudani-yaen-koen-japan/

• [Anonymous]

  That top picture taken just moments before a female Snow Monkey surfaces in front of him…

• [emmdeeaych]

  I am still amazed that the Japanese have managed to live on a small crowded island and have collectively decided not to eat, kill, or otherwise mangle these monkeys. Based on everywhere else people live and what we do to the place once we’ve arrived, that’s a wonderful thing.

• [jorum]

  All those monkeys-in-hot-spring pictures were somewhat spoiled for me when I found out there are strict hierarchy rules. Low rank monkeys will be attacked for being in the “wrong” pool and the really unfortunate will not be allowed in any at all and may literally freeze to death.

  • [Aloisius]

    may literally freeze to death.

    I’m pretty certain that they won’t freeze to death from not being able to go into the hot spring.

    Macaques going into hot springs is a relatively recent phenomenon (sometime in the ’70s) and not all macaques in Japan actually use the hot springs.

    • [Antinous / Moderator]

      I’m pretty certain that they won’t freeze to death from not being able to go into the hot spring.

      Being expelled from the warmth when already wet is another story.

  • [Anonymous]

    “All those monkeys-in-hot-spring pictures were somewhat spoiled for me when I found out there are strict hierarchy rules. Low rank monkeys will be attacked for being in the “wrong” pool and the really unfortunate will not be allowed in any at all and may literally freeze to death.”

    They emulate people unusually well then………

  • [Rob Cruickshank]

    Yes, these monkeys are not always nice to each other. We watched one low-ranking monkey get a little to close to the #1 monkey, which lunged at it. It was then that we realized that “scared shitless” is not just a saying. (Just to be clear, it was the monkey that was scared. We manged to control ourselves)

  • [wrybread]

    To be fair, try going to a country club or some such “high ranking” human dwelling where you’re not supposed to be, and see what happens…

• [Anonymous]

  I saw monkeys like this in an episode of Wild Kratts or whatever show the Kratt brothers do.

• [Anonymous]

  Amazingly, it was only in 1963 that snow monkeys discovered the joys of hot springs.

  I had always assumed their behaviour was countless millenia old.

• [Anonymous]

  Wow… They Have… Fingernails. Humanlike Fingernails. Interesting…

• [Wickedashtray]

  Looks a lot like my old coke dealer.

• [riotgirl007]

  We loved visiting the monkeys on our trip to Japan. You can see a photo here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/devildotbunny/3279474254/in/set-72157608601847842

  You can also watch them on a Internet cam at; http://www.jigokudani-yaenkoen.co.jp/livecam/monkey/index.htm

• [MachineElf]

  Sure, they look relaxed. But don’t fall for it – don’t mistake apathy for relaxation! Once you’re in there…

  http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/funny-pictures-hitman-monkey-drowns-boy.jpg

• [Rob Cruickshank]

  The monkeys don’t seem particularly cold when they get out- I think there’s enough monkey-lanolin in their fur to protect them.
  Steaming wet monkey is not the greatest smell in the world, BTW.

  • [wrybread]

    Oh man I used to love the band Monkey Lanolin. I once saw them open for Steaming Wet Monkey, which was frickin amazing.