macaque

[muh-kak, -kahk]

macaque, name for Old World monkeys of the genus Macaca, related to mangabeys, mandrills, and baboons. All but one of the 19 species are found in Asia from Afghanistan to Japan, the Philippines, and Borneo. Macaques can be slight, with very long tails, or stocky, with short limbs and a short tail or, in a few species, no tail. They are highly intelligent and display a great variety of calls and facial expressions. A typical macaque is the rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta) of S Asia. It is yellowish brown with a pale, naked face and a tail about half as long as the body. A large male may reach a body length of 2 ft (60 cm). Rhesus monkeys live in social groups of 25-60 individuals in forests and on rocky hillsides, ranging to high altitudes. Omnivorous feeders, they often raid cultivated fields and gardens. The rhesus monkey has been widely used in medical and other scientific experiments; the Rh blood factor, found in humans as well as monkeys, is named for it. The stump-tailed macaque (M. arctaides) is a nearly tailless, very hairy macaque with a naked pink face, found at high altitudes in SE Asia. One of its close relatives the Japanese macaque (M. fuscata) is the northernmost primate other than man. Its social organization has been extensively studied, and it has been found that there are culturally transmitted behavioral differences among different troops. The single non-Asian macaque is the so-called Barbary ape (M. sylvanus), a large, tailless species of NW Africa, with one colony on the Rock of Gibraltar; it is the only nonhuman primate found in Europe. Macaques are classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Mammalia, order Primates, family Cercopithecidae.

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macaque

Any of about 12 primarily Asian species of omnivorous, diurnal monkeys (genus Macaca) with cheek pouches for carrying food. Some species have long tails, some have short tails, and some have none. Males are 16–28 in. (41–70 cm) long (excluding the tail) and weigh 12–40 lb (5.5–18 kg). Troops live in mountains and lowlands and along shores. The rhesus monkey (M. mulatta) has been important to medical and psychological research. Malays train pig-tailed macaques (M. nemestrina) to pick coconuts. Seealso Barbary ape; bonnet monkey; Celebes black ape.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

Barbary macaque

Barbary macaque (Macaca sylvana).

Tailless, terrestrial monkey (Macaca sylvana) found in groups in Algeria and Morocco and on the Rock of Gibraltar. It is about 24 in. (60 cm) long and has yellowish brown fur and a bald, pale pink face. Lacking a tail, this macaque has often been incorrectly called an ape. It is the only wild monkey in Europe and may have arrived in medieval times, taken westward during the Muslim Arab territorial expansion. According to legend, British dominion over Gibraltar will end when the Barbary macaque departs.

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Macaque

The macaques constitute a genus (Macaca, /məˈkækə/) of Old World monkeys of the subfamily Cercopithecinae.

Aside from humans (genus Homo), the macaques are the most widespread primate genus, ranging from northern Africa to Japan. Twenty-two macaque species are currently recognised, and they include some of the monkeys best known to non-zoologists, such as the Rhesus Macaque (as the Rhesus Monkey), Macaca mulatta, and the Barbary Macaque (as the Barbary Ape), M. sylvanus, a colony of which lives on the Rock of Gibraltar. Although several species lack tails, and their common names therefore refer to them as apes, these are true monkeys, with no greater relationship to the true apes than any other Old World monkeys.

Several species of macaque are used extensively in animal testing.

In the late 1990s it was discovered that nearly all (about 90%) pet and captive macaques are carriers of the herpes-B virus. This virus is harmless to macaques, but infections of humans, while rare, are potentially fatal. A 2005 University of Toronto study showed that urban performing macaques also carried simian foamy virus, suggesting they could be involved in the species-to-species jump of similar retroviruses to humans.