Queensland monkey

The Queensland monkey is a cryptid inhabiting the extremely remote Cape York Peninsula and was only encountered once. The Cape York Peninsula is larger than Ecuador and is the most unexplored and biodiverse region of Australia’s east coast, with the only “true” tropical rainforest in Australia being found there. It’s so remote, that some Aboriginal groups remained uncontacted there well into the mid 20th century.

In October of 1932, a group of gold prospectors spent a week or so journeying into the interior of the Cape York Peninsula when they came across a group of 15 to 20 monkeys. The prospectors surveyed the area where they lived and found that they only inhabited a 154x48 km area. The monkeys seemed to have been crab-eating macaques (Macaca fascicularis). One of the prospectors shot one of the monkeys, and it was a female, about 30 pounds. If the prospectors’ accounts are true, it’s unknown whether these monkeys are native to Australia or are one of the many species introduced by Europeans. One of the prospectors named “king”, thought that they may have been introduced by Malay fishermen before Europeans.