Macaque

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For other uses, see Macaca.
Macaques

(Macaca fascicularis) Mother and child in the Ubud Monkey Forest Sanctuary (Bali, Indonesia)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Cercopithecidae
Subfamily: Cercopithecinae
Genus: Macaca
Lacepede, 1799
Type species
Simia inuus
Linnaeus, 1758 = Simia sylvanus Linnaeus, 1758
Species

See text.
Crab-eating macaque eating an ice-cream popsicle at Prang Sam Yot, Lopburi, Thailand
Japanese Macaque at the Toronto Zoo

The macaques (IPA: /məˈkak/) constitute a genus (Macaca, IPA: /məˈkakə/) 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 (circa 90%) pet or 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.[1]

Contents

  • 1 Species list
  • 2 See also
  • 3 References
  • 4 External links

[edit] Species list

Genus Macaca