Scientists and researchers have been able to watch the introduction of a new skill, but this one arrived very fast, on some of the islands within Thailand. This perhaps shows the intelligence of the Long-tailed macaques in question rather than being any sudden change. The requirement to develop the skills occurred because the arrival of COVID meant that tourists, who often give food to the monkeys, dried up almost overnight.
While many of these tourism activities were (and likely are) labelled as eco-tourism, clearly there needs to be a big change, if humans had such a big impact on these monkeys wild behaviour.
