Japanese Monkey Mum Catches Her Infant Leaping down from Chestnut Tree

A small troop of Japanese monkeys (aka snow monkey; Macaca fuscata fuscata, family Cercopithecidae) were found gathering around a giant tree of Japanese Chestnut (Castanea crenata, family Fagaceae) at the edge of the post-harvested crop field. They were foraging for dropped chestnuts among spiny burs scattered across the ground under the tree. When an early juvenile climbed down the tree trunk headfirst and audaciously jumped to the ground, the devoted mother stood up on her hindlegs and caught her infant safely. Note that this mother monkey had a black collar with a GPS device or something for telemetry. The moment of truth was replayed at 5x slow-motion. As soon as they spotted me, the troop members began to move away nervously to the windbreaker forest of Japanese red-cedar (Cryptomeria japonica, family Cupressaceae) as the nearest hideout. The infants were transported either by ventral clinging or dorsal riding on their mothers. Captured in the sunny early-afternoon (around 12:15 PM) of early-December 2024 in Japan. For a full story (text in Japanese); https://sigma-nature-vlog.blogspot.com/2026/03/blog-post_26.html