There is a fun photograph by Marsel van Oosten that won “The People’s Choice” wildlife photography award from the Natural History Museum.  It was taken at the Jigokudani Monkey Park in Japan and shows a Snow Monkey “chillin’” out in his hot spring and surfing with an IPhone. Thanks to a reader for alerting me to this.

The story, according to van Oosten is that a tourist was photographing the macaque and just kept getting closer and closer until the monkey suddenly snapped the phone away, headed out to deeper water, and begin playing with it.  He even managed to fire off the flash a couple of times and tried some underwater photography.  But, of course, Oosten knew what was coming and snapped the primate at this most human of moments.  The award is not without some controversy however.  Because the “People’s Choice” award involved internet voting, there is some concern that the monkey may have voted for himself, indeed perhaps multiple times.  This, which, of course, brings into question whether the vote should still be called “People’s Choice.”

The other awards are really worth looking at as well and can be found at the NHM website.