Did the Associated Press totally get hosed with one of the most infamous journalism hoaxes of recent memory? Maybe! Maybe not!

An article making its way through the wire service today reports that "researchers say they have discovered groups of the silver-haired monkeys in Indonesia that fish. Groups of long-tailed macaques were observed four times over the past eight years scooping up small fish with their hands and eating them along rivers in East Kalimantan and North Sumatra provinces, according to researchers from The Nature Conservancy and the Great Ape Trust. The species had been known to eat fruit and forage for crabs and insects, but never before fish from rivers."

Huh. Because back in 2001, Slate writer Jay Forman wrote about something very similar, only about monkeys in the Florida Keys, not Indonesia — and they weren't the ones doing the fishing. Rather, locals (of the human variety) were baiting rhesus monkeys with apples. And then, in Feb. 2007, he admitted to making the entire story up.

As the Museum of Hoaxes remembers it: "The column was a colorful piece of reporting full of vivid observations about the art of monkey fishing. Who would have guessed, for instance, that oranges are the fruit of choice for baiting monkeys? But almost as soon as the article was published it attracted criticism. The Wall Street Journal didn’t believe a word of it, declaring that, “Slate Gets Hoaxed.” Michael Kinsley, Slate’s editor, fired back, insisting that his magazine stood behind the veracity of the story. But under the weight of continuing criticism Kinsley backed down. On June 25 he published an apology, acknowledging that key details in Forman’s story were fictitious."

So now that we've reversed the story here – with the monkeys doing the fishing – can we trust this new monkey fishing report?

Adds MOH about Forman's story:

Was the article a complete fiction? Apparently not. Lois Key was inhabited by rhesus monkeys until 1999 when the monkeys were removed for environmental reasons. Kinsley assured his readers that once or twice a fisherman had rowed out to the island and thrown pieces of fruit attached to a line onto the shore. Fortunately for the monkeys (but unfortunately for Slate.com) the reaction of the monkeys to the fruit was somewhat underwhelming. A few of them had picked it up and then dropped it back down. This was the riveting reality behind the monkey fishing scandal.

Now, of course, the monkeys with the mad skillz are halfway around the world, in Indonesia. And: Scientists are on board!

Meijaard, a senior science adviser at The Nature Conservancy, said it was unclear what prompted the long-tailed macaques to go fishing.

But he said it showed a side of the monkeys that is well-known to researchers — an ability to adapt to the changing environment and shifting food sources.

"They are a survivor species, which has the knowledge to cope with difficult conditions," Meijaard said Tuesday. "This behavior potentially symbolizes that ecological flexibility."

The other authors of the paper, which describes the fishing as "rare and isolated" behavior, are The Nature Conservancy volunteers Anne-Marie E. Stewart, Chris H. Gordon and Philippa Schroor, and Serge Wich of the Great Ape Trust.

Some other primates have exhibited fishing behavior, Meijaard wrote, including Japanese macaques, chacma baboons, olive baboons, chimpanzees and orangutans.

Agustin Fuentes, a University of Notre Dame anthropology professor who studies long-tailed macaques, or macaca fascicularis, on the Indonesian island of Bali and in Singapore, said he was "heartened" to see the finding published because such details can offer insight into the "complexity of these animals."

"It was not surprising to me because they are very adaptive," he said. "If you provide them with an opportunity to get something tasty, they will do their best to get it."