I saw the episode of the Discovery Channel's "Wild Discovery" about the macaques last night. (Macaques are Japanese snow monkeys... and no, it wasn't macaques that were terrorizing Ito a couple of months back. Anyway... I just happened to catch the "mating rituals of macaques" portion of the program.

The "courtship" is typical monkey stuff... male macaques strutting about, looking like macho monkeys for a few days to impress the females. (It was alot like the scene at the Red Jacket [a local night club], strangely enough.) The actual mating time, however, was pretty darn cool. When a female finally chose a male, the male got behind her and... started picking the bugs out of her fur. This would go on for a few minutes... then the male would stand up, bend the female over, and give her a couple strokes "monkey style." Monkey style is similar to doggy style, only the male stand on his tip-toes and bounced up and down. It looked more like a failed attempt at leapfrog than it looked like monkeys having sex.

Then the male and female would resume their sitting positions, and the male would continue grooming the female and picking nits. Then he would stand up and give her a couple more strokes. (Note: when I say "couple" I do actually mean two. The actual simian intercourse bits only took three to five seconds.) And this patter--according to the voice-over guy who apparently gets to watch the monkeys mate for hours--continues for about twenty minutes. Two minutes of grooming... three seconds of humping... two minutes of grooming... and so on.

As for the males who didn't pair up with females... the more aggressive--and sexually frustrated--of them would chase the other unoccupied monkeys around and bite them really hard. Hell hath no fury as a lonely monkey.