| Macaca | |
|---|---|
 Japanese Macaque (Macaca fuscata) | |
| Scientific Classification | |
| Kingdom | Animalia |
| Phylum | Chordata |
| Class | Mammalia |
| Order | Primates |
| Family | Cercopithecidae Cercopithecinae |
| Genus | Macaca |
Macaca or macaques is a genus of Old World monkeys of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. The word "macaca" comes from New Latin, which is from Portuguese macaca which is feminine of macaco meaning "monkey" which is from an unknown ultimate origin but it is possibly from an unknown African language from the Congo region.
Description[]
Aside from humans (genus Homo), the macaques are the most widespread primate genus, ranging from Japan to Afghanistan and, in the case of the barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus), to North Africa and Southern Europe. Twenty-two macaque species are currently recognized, including some of the monkeys best known to non-zoologists, such as the rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta), and the barbary macaque, 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.
Social Behavior[]
Macaques have a very intricate social structure and hierarchy. If a macaque of a lower level in the social chain has eaten berries and none are left for a higher-level macaque, then the one higher in status can, within this social organization, remove the berries from the other monkey's mouth.
Relation with Humans[]
Several species of macaques are used extensively in animal testing, particularly in the neuroscience of visual perception and the visual system.
Nearly all (73–100%) 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 risk that makes macaques unsuitable as pets.
A 2005 University of Toronto study showed urban performing macaques also carried simian foamy virus, suggesting they could be involved in the species-to-species jump of similar retroviruses to humans.
Species[]
Genus Macaca Macaca sylvanus group Barbary Macaque (Linnaeus, 1758) (Macaca sylvanus) Macaca nemestrina group Lion-tailed Macaque (Linnaeus, 1758) (Macaca silenus) Southern Pig-tailed Macaque (Linnaeus, 1766) (Macaca nemestrina) Northern Pig-tailed Macaque (Blyth, 1863) (Macaca leonina) Pagai Island Macaque (Miller, 1903) (Macaca pagensis) Siberut Macaque (Fuentes & Olson, 1995) (Macaca siberu) Moor Macaque (H.R. Schinz, 1825) (Macaca maura) Booted Macaque (Ogilby, 1841) (Macaca ochreata) Tonkean Macaque (Meyer, 1899) (Macaca tonkeana) Heck's Macaque (Matschie, 1901) (Macaca hecki) Gorontalo Macaque (Temminck, 1849) (Macaca nigrescens) Celebes Crested Macaque (Desmarest, 1822) (Macaca nigra) Macaca fascicularis group Crab-eating Macaque (Raffles, 1821) (Macaca fascicularis) Stump-tailed Macaque (I. Geoffroy, 1831, 1831) (Macaca arctoides) Macaca mulatta group Rhesus Macaque (Zimmermann, 1780) (Macaca mulatta) Formosan Rock Macaque (Swinhoe, 1862) (Macaca cyclopis) Japanese Macaque (Blyth, 1875) (Macaca fuscata) Macaca fuscata fuscata Yakushima Macaque (Macaca fuscata yakui) Macaca sinica group Toque Macaque (Linnaeus, 1771) (Macaca sinica) Bonnet Macaque (É. Geoffroy, 1812) (Macaca radiata) Assam Macaque (McClelland, 1840) (Macaca assamensis) Tibetan Macaque (Milne-Edwards, 1870) (Macaca thibetana) Arunachal Macaque (Sinha et al., 2005) (Macaca munzala) White-cheeked Macaque (Li, Zhao, Fan, 2015) (Macaca leucogenys)
Prehistoric (fossil) species:[]
†Macaca anderssoni (Schlosser, 1924) †Macaca jiangchuanensis (Pan et al., 1992) †Macaca libyca (Stromer, 1920) †Macaca majori (Schaub and Azzaroli, 1946)