When the snow falls in the mountains of Japan, young Japanese macaques frequently make snowballs and carry them around. The grown-up macaques don't make snowballs, though they sometimes will play with the ones the younger monkeys make. The funniest part is that even though they like rolling a lot of snowballs, no one has ever seen the macaques throw them!

The very first female to travel into outer space was a squirrel monkey. Her name was Miss Baker. In 1959 Miss Baker was one of two squirrel monkeys to fly on a fifteen minute mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Coconuts are a very important crop in Malaysia. For many years, the Malaysian people have worked hard climbing the coconut trees to pick the fruit that grows at the top.
This kind of work is very tiring and very dangerous.  The people have trained pig-tailed macaques to climb the trees and pick the coconuts. The macaques are connected by long thin ropes to their human partners waiting on the ground. A trained monkey can pick more than three to four hundred coconuts before the sun gets too hot and the monkeys get too tired to work anymore. Now that's a lot of coconuts!

An organization called Helping Hands in Boston, Massachusetts trains capuchins to live with people that are disabled. These monkeys are very valuable helpers, especially for people that are unable to use their own hands. They can help by doing things like getting food out of the refrigerator, turning on computers, and even carrying things around. Sometimes the monkeys can be a friend for the person too. In this way, the capuchins are helpful in more ways than one.
 

Folklore, Fables and Legends

Jupiter and the Monkey (From Aesop's Fables) 

Jupiter issued a proclamation to all the beasts of the forest and promised a royal reward to the one whose offspring should be deemed the handsomest. The Monkey came with the rest and presented, with all a mother's tenderness, a flat-nosed, hairless, ill-featured young Monkey as a candidate for the promised reward. A general laugh saluted her on the presentation of her son. She resolutely said, "I know not whether Jupiter will allot the prize to my son, but this I do know, that he is at least in the eyes of me his mother, the dearest, handsomest, and most beautiful of all."
 

In India, monkeys are treated as very special animals, sometimes they are even considered holy.  There is an ancient legend about a langur monkey who was very intelligent and had special powers.  The monkey was called Hanuman (say HA-nuh-man).  Hanuman had many adventures as he served his master, the god Rama.  In one particular adventure, Hanuman's enemy Ravana set fire to his tail.  But Hanuman escaped, jumping from building to building.  As he fled the city, his burning tail lit the enemy's entire city on fire.  During festivals in India, men dress like monkeys and act out the adventures of Hanuman.

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