Are you positive?
A chimpanzee: yes. A guerilla: indubitable. But a monkey?
They seem like medium-sized dogs, that can move around quicker and more freely. They'll bite out your flesh, and perhaps maim you to a semi-serious degree (including infection), but I cannot fathom a monkey seriously killing a grown adult male human being.
These are 20-40lb, very aggressive racoons. If you shock them with anything, they're most likely going to flee for fear of serious injury.
Oh boy never test this out. They will attack violently and will not spare you. If they have enough numbers or have the pack leader(usually the one with the biggest balls) close by then they will retaliate. I'm from south India and I have seen a lot of grown up men get roughed up by monkeys
They also move a lot more...three-dimensionally than you might imagine, making it hard to predict where they're going.
Macaques have large teeth and strong jaw muscles (as do dogs); but unlike dogs (or say even piranhas), it doesn't look like monkeys rip and tear flesh like canids. Their mouths are a lot like human mouths: incisors in the front, two canines on either side, and a bunch of (pre)molars, indicative of omnivores. The two canines will definitely pierce the skin. The incisors, most likely as well; but the molars are absolutely useless here.
Whereas dogs (and more specifically sharks) have "saw-like" teeth, that combined with strong neck muscles (and a propensity to grab hold, and shake vigorously, as if they're literally sawing away flesh), make them a lot more lethal to most land mammals.
If we include monkey eating habits, I don't see any large mammals on the list (all the mammals they may eat are smaller than them); compare that to the canid family, that will hunt down mammals many times larger than them. I just don't see how the monkey is built to be able to kill a human being.
Granted, it's going to hurt a lot to get bitten by a monkey. But I just don't see how a 40lb mammal can do that much damage. If you can somehow restrain it by the neck, it's basically over for any mammal of that size without claws (or another means of escape) -- which monkeys don't seem to have.
Now, if we're talking a chimpanzee? I'm going to do everything in my power to get out of that situation. But a monkey? A large dog is more of a threat.
At that point, I believe it's apt to start elbow-dropping, curb-stomping, and punting monkeys.
If for some unknown reason, 5 monkeys ambushed me on a regular walk, I'm confident I could throw enough of a fuss that'd dissuade them from trying to steal my lunch.
Now 10 monkeys? I don't know. That's a lot of monkeys.
I don't think I'm ever going to encounter 10 monkeys, all set on turning me into tartare.
However, if I were to have my jimmies rustled by 10 monkeys at the same time, I would put it at 2:1 odds that I survive without life-threatening injuries.
On the other hand, if you backed five desperate monkeys into corner so that they think they are fighting for their lives, I think you'd fare much worse. I'd bet "punt attempts" sometimes end with the monkey clinging to your leg instead, chomping away at whatever they can reach (and even the molars can do some damage given the tremendous bite force).
I have no doubt it's not wise to fight a monkey, but I wouldn't expect it to actually win.
Really? I would expect that the inevitable injuries aren't worth it, but I'd expect this to be the case on both sides, with the monkey ending up significantly worse off if the human were to actually consider it a fight-to-kill-or-be-killed, not a "make the nuisance go away".
What I don't understand though: If the monkeys are such a nuisance, why are they tolerated? Is there a religious taboo against hurting them? Legal protection? Strict limits on what kind of weapons people can have?
A religious granny wouldn't want to kill a monkey, but if her grandson is threatened? Hell yes.
And, yes, they are protected by wildlife conservation laws.
I would say that at least in north east india, monkeys didn't seem to be a huge problem. There are langurs everywhere, but they mostly stick to trees or the jungle, or sometimes the outskirts of towns. I think it's probably because they have plenty of places to eat there relative to the more urbanized parts of the country.
These monkeys are protected by wildlife conservation act.
Some weeks back, some guy poisoned a few pigeons that ate his crops that were being dried in the sun.
Last I heard that the police lodged a criminal case against him.
It was on the newspapers.
And many of monkey i know here are too friendly but yea after they starts to live with humans they learn to hoodwink people because many thieves are known to use monkey to snatch valuables from tourist by providing bananas as incentives to them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Monkeys_and_Bears_Bui...
We are an animal and part of nature too.
> And they don't have enough wisdom to know who they should harm and who they shouldn't.
They seem pretty smart about it tbh. They know what they can get away with and go no further than that.
But they cause heavy and serious nuisance.
Where I live, these monkeys invade gradens, agricultural fields, house rooftops at least 4-5 times a month.
The locals drop anything they do, and chase away these monkeys.
When chased by an adult male human, these monkeys don't fight back and are easily frightened. They don't mess with adult males or groups of humans.
A kid or a lone woman is not safe, though. When faced by them, monkeys gesture retaliation, and that is enough frightening.
An adult male cannot physically take on a monkey. It is impossible. Still they don't attack.
They steal bananas, mangos, guavas- all kinds of fruits, any food item not indoors, and destroy flowers and plants.
Thus, for families depending on these as their source of income have to always remain vigilant to monkey invasions. Common methods include- stone being thrown directly at them intending full harm, pebbles thrown by slingshots, and firecrackers. Banging metal objects loudly also seems to help.
We have mango groves that we lend on a yearly basis. The people who lease them from us establish outposts during the mango season which are always manned by at least one man with ready reinforcement in case of monkey invasion.
For those families not depending financially on tree products are also harmed. They make growing flowering plants difficult. They steal food from outdoors, and not to mention the awfully smelling solid and liquid excretion they leave on your rooftops.
(All rooftops are flat in the plains region, and they are important in our lives.)
By the way, I lost one pomelo (Citrus maxima) to a bunch of monkeys this very afternoon.