( See a woodpecker atop a weasel and other animals riding animals.)
The deer have also been seen eating the monkeys’ feces, and the primates, in turn, have been seen grooming and even riding the deer, says Cédric Sueur, an animal behaviorist at Hubert Curien Multidisciplinary Institute in France. This association has little to do with camaraderie: The deer know that if they stay close to the macaques, they can scarf up any fruits that the macaques drop from the canopy above. Japanese macaques and sika deer regularly hang around each other on the island of Yakushima. A male monkey in Japan has been filmed trying to mate with a female deer-likely the first observation of two distantly related species having a nonviolent sexual encounter.
