Japanese Macaque Shatters Monkey Glass Ceiling

A monkey in Japan got first crack at some peanuts and made history. Yakei, a female macaque monkey at the Takasakiyama Natural Zoological Garden on Kyushu, is the alpha of a troop of 677 monkeys. When her troop let her eat peanuts put out by keepers at the park, it proved her position, the Guardian reports. She’s the first alpha female observed there since the facility opened in 1953, the Mainichi reports. Yakei had a fight with her mom in April and won. That gave her alpha status among the female macaques.

But her campaign for power wasn’t over yet. She picked a fight with Sanchu, the 31-year-old alpha male of the troop and bested him. “Since then, Yakei has been climbing trees and shaking them, which is an expression of power and a very rare behavior in females,” Satoshi Kimoto, a guide at Takasakiyama, said. There’s another troop of monkeys at the zoo, so Yakei’s campaign of conquest might not be over yet. (More weird news stories.)