Among the most researched creatures in the globe are the forty-three rhesus macaque monkeys that broke out of a medical laboratory in South Carolina this week.
And through their own ingenious behaviors, organ systems, and genetic code, they have served as a mirror to humanity for over a century, exposing our virtues and vices.
They are bare-faced apes with expressive eyes that have been sent into space on rockets. They have mapped their genome. They even starred in a reality television program.
The species has been the focus of research on vaccines, organ transplantation, and the effects of taking babies from their mothers, according to animal rights organizations.
However, many in the scientific community will tell you how important their work is in the fight against COVID-19, AIDS, and polio.
In South Carolina, what kind of monkeys escaped?
When a national scarcity of rhesus macaques threatened to halt research in 2003, researchers were having to pay up to $10,000 per animal to keep going.
According to a 2022 study published in the journal eLife, humans have been utilizing rhesus macaques for scientific purposes since the late 1800s, when the theory of evolution began to gain traction.
According to the eLife article, the species’ “anatomy of advanced pregnancy” was the subject of the first study on it, which was published in 1893. In order to research embryology and fertility in a species that was similar to humans, the Carnegie Science Institute established a breeding population of the monkeys around 1925.
The animal’s appeal was partly due to its abundance. From Afghanistan and India to Vietnam and China, these monkeys have the widest natural range of any non-human primate.
The Salk polio vaccine was created in the 1950s using the kidneys of a monkey. According to a brief history of animals in space on the agency’s website, NASA also used the animals throughout the space race.
A Mercury spacecraft carrying a rhesus monkey dubbed “Miss Sam,” for instance, reached a speed of 1,800 mph (1,900 kph) and an altitude of 9 miles (14.5 km) when it was launched in 1960. Overall, she was in good condition when she was recovered.
NASA stated that “she was returned to her training colony until her death on an unknown date.”
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The rhesus macaque’s DNA was deciphered by scientists in 2007. Despite splitting off from the ape family some 25 million years ago, macaques and humans share over 93% of their DNA.
By contrast, chimpanzees and humans share about 99 percent of their DNA sequences despite having diverged from a common ancestor some 6 million years ago.
An enormous amount of work was done to understand the DNA of other animals after the human genome was mapped in 2001. The third primate genome to be finished was that of the rhesus macaque.
The research is equally fascinating to those who have studied rhesus macaque behavior.
Maestripieri, a professor at the University of Chicago who authored a book about the species, stated, “They share some striking similarities to ourselves in terms of their social intelligence.”
“They’re very political,” Maestripieri stated. “Most of their daily lives are spent building political alliances with each other. Does that sound familiar?”
Maestripieri served as a consultant for “Monkey Thieves,” a reality show about some rhesus macaques in India.
