Japanese Snow Monkey Swipes Tourist's Phone

This amusing capture by acclaimed Dutch photographer Marsel van Oosten shows a Japanese snow monkey (also known as a Japanese macaque) who mischieviously stole a tourist's iPhone at the Jigokudani Monkey Park in Japan. 

In an interview with 500px, van Oosten explained the circumstances surrounding the shot.

"We were standing close to the edge of the hot spring, when one of the tourists started taking shots with her iPhone, moving the phone closer to the macaque after each shot.

Suddenly, the macaque grabbed the iPhone from her hands and quickly moved away towards the middle of the hot spring!

The owner screamed in agony, but the macaque was too fascinated by its new toy to notice.

The minutes that followed were downright hilarious. Monkeys already resemble humans in so many ways, but when they're holding an iPhone, the similarities are almost scary. At some point, it even managed to let the built-in flash of the iPhone go off. When the macaque decided to do some serious underwater testing, the owner of the phone almost fainted. Meanwhile, I was fully aware that this would result in some of the most original snow monkey shots ever."

van Oosten's photo was entered in the UK Natural History Museum's Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition 2014, in which he won the People's Choice Award category.

Via: The Unofficial Apple Weblog | Image: Marsel van Oosten