Long-tailed Macaques

This is has been a recent puzzle for me - inspite of the huge biodiversity that the Philippines has, why does it only have ONE species of monkey? Yup, that's the only one - the Long Tailed Macaque. This archipelago has more than 600 species of birds, two-thirds of the known coral species, thousands of insects, endemic bats, plants, orchids, reptiles, more than 20 marine mammals. And yet.... only one monkey.

You can see monkeys roaming freely in the forest edge of Subic and in Puerto Princesa Subterranean National Park in Palawan. A colony even lives amongst humans somewhere in Davao.

Everytime I see this monkey in the wild, I can't help but pose that question again and again.