Portrait of the apes: Monkey takes a selfie with stunned British tourists (but all is not as it seems)

These British tourists looked stunned after taking a holiday snap with this cheeky monkey in Bali, Indonesia.

Chloe and Craig Dennis were in Ubud’s Sacred Monkey Forest when they came across one of the 1,260 Balinese long-tailed macaques found in the area.

Incredibly, they seemed to capture the moment by forcing the monkey to take a remarkably good selfie of the three of them.

The resulting photo showed Chloe and Craig with looks of apparent disbelief on their faces as the primate posed, with their mouths open.

Chloe from Devon, UK, said of the outing: ‘It was absolutely the trip of a lifetime!’

The The sacred monkey forest of Ubud is a natural sanctuary in Padangtegal village, Ubud, which covers some 12.5 hectares of land and is home to approximately 1,200 monkeys.

Since the 14th century, the forest has been considered a sacred place and is still home to three temples.

It is believed that the monkeys symbolize both protection and mischief, which is reflected in the selfies they offer for IDR 50,000 (£2.50) each.

Today the forest lives on from its responsible tourist trade, which maintains it as an essential nature reserve.

Encouraging people to achieve spiritual and physical well-being through a harmonious exchange with the environment, the administrators invite people to responsibly get close to the monkeys native to the country.

The monkeys are believed to live in 10 separate groups, each with their own habitat, in the forest.

Local residents and forest workers continue to provide them with a steady diet of sweet potatoes and bananas.

In return, the monkeys seem more than happy to offer tourists selfies.

Visitors can purchase a voucher for the ‘monkey selfie activity’.

If they want to take a photo themselves, they are advised to keep sufficient distance from the monkey.

In 2018, a legal precedent was set, ending a long legal battle over who owned the rights to a photo taken by a monkey.

The fight started when another monkey stole a photographer’s camera and started taking pictures of himself.

Naruto, a crested macaque, also from Indonesia, took several now-famous photos with David John Slater’s camera while on assignment in Indonesia.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s ruling that animals have no legal rights to photos they take after its copyright status was questioned.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) had sued on behalf of Naruto Slater and self-publisher Blurb in 2015, arguing that publishing and selling the photos without [Naruto’s] consent infringed on Naruto’s rights as set out in the Copyright Act.

Generally, the author and original copyright holder of a photo is the person who takes the photo – in both US and UK law.

Ultimately, the court ruled: “Our court’s precedent requires us to conclude that the monkey’s claim is valid under Article III of the United States Constitution.

‘Nevertheless, we conclude that this monkey – and all animals, since they are not human – has no legal status under the Copyright Act.1

“We therefore affirm the court’s judgment,” panel judge Carlos Bea said.

When reaching an agreement with PETA, Slater agreed to donate 25 percent of all future revenue from the use or sale of the photos to charities that protect macaque habitat in Indonesia.

A crab-eating macaque in the Ubud Monkey Forest, Bali, Indonesia. Not dated

Balinese take part in a purification ritual at Beji Temple, located in a monkey sanctuary in Ubud on the Indonesian holiday island of Bali, on August 15, 2019

According to a joint statement, “PETA and David Slater agree that this case raises important, groundbreaking issues about expanding legal rights for non-human animals, a goal they both support, and they will continue their respective work continue to achieve this goal.’

a rack of PETA said at the time: ‘Naruto and the famous ‘monkey selfie’ photos he unmistakably took clearly demonstrate that he and his fellow macaques – like so many other animals – are highly intelligent, thinking, sophisticated beings who are worthy of legally owning their own intellectual property and have other rights as members of the legal community.

“Naruto’s case went all the way to a federal appeals court and shows that the fight for animal rights is ingrained in our legal system. We will continue to work in court to establish legal rights for animals.

“Everyone deserves the rights we hold dear: to live as they choose, to be with their families, to be free from abuse and suffering, and to benefit from their own creations.”

MailOnline contacted Ubud’s Sacred Monkey Forest for comment.