Lucy Cooke on the rule-busting female upsetting the male-dominant order
JAPANESE MACAQUE
Japanese macaques are wily primates. They like to throw snowballs and have learned to survive the winter by languishing in hot springs, hence their nickname ‘snow monkeys’. They’re sophisticated communicators with regional dialects and their habit of washing sweet potatoes in salty seawater before eating is passed down from one generation to the next, qualifying this peculiar learned behaviour as bona fide culture. Now, thanks to a revolutionary female called Yakei, we can add smashing the patriarchy to their record of cunning stunts.
In 2021, Yakei, a nine-year-old female, became the alpha leader of her colony of 677 macaques at the Takasakiyama Natural Zoological Garden, which was established as a reserve for snow monkeys in 1952. The Japanese reserve has two macaque colonies, which spend most of their time roaming the forested mountain at its centre. They also receive daily food offerings from the park wardens who, in turn, document the romantic and political struggles of the park’s simian residents.
Japanese macaques are considered a male-dominant species. Males gain authority the longer they remain in a troop and eventually fight one another for the coveted alpha position, which entitles them to greater access to food, mates and resting locations. Females have their own matrilineal hierarchy, a stable system in which status passes down the generations, with daughters holding the rank below their mothers. No female had ever fought a male for dominance at the park, which is what made Yakei’s bloody coup so shocking to primatologists.
Yakei’s rise to power began with her beating up her own mother and assuming the role of top female in the troop. She then embarked on a vicious vendetta against the troop’s three highest-rank
