A monkey is a primate of the Haplorrhini suborder and simian infraorder, either an Old World
monkey or a New World monkey, but excluding apes and humans.
By this definition, the most common in biology, the monkeys are the group of all primates
that are not tarsiers, lemurs, apes or humans and consist of about 260 known living species.
Colloquially, the term "monkey" can also include all non-human apes.
Many species are arboreal, although there are species that live primarily on the ground,
such as baboons.
Monkeys are generally considered to be intelligent.
Unlike apes, monkeys usually have tails.
Tailless monkeys may be called "apes", incorrectly according to modern usage; thus the tailless
Barbary macaque is called the "Barbary ape".
The New World monkeys are classified within the parvorder of Platyrrhini, whereas the
Old World monkeys form part of the parvorder Catarrhini, which also includes the hominoids.
Thus, as Old World monkeys are more closely related to hominoids than they are to New
World monkeys, the monkeys are not a unitary group.
Historical and modern terminology
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word "monkey" may originate in a German
version of the Reynard the Fox fable, published circa 1580.
In this version of the fable, a character named Moneke is the son of Martin the Ape.
In English, no very clear distinction was originally made between "ape" and "monkey";
thus the 1910 Encyclopædia Britannica entry for "ape" notes that it is either a synonym
for "monkey" or is used to mean a tailless humanlike primate.
Such ambiguities persist.
Colloquially, the terms "monkeys" and "apes" may still be used interchangeably.
Also, a few monkey species have the word "ape" in their common name, such as the Barbary
ape.
Later in the first half of the 20th century, the idea developed that there were trends
in primate evolution and that the living members of the order could be arranged in a series,
leading through "monkeys" and "apes" to humans.
Monkeys thus constituted a "grade" on the path to humans and were distinguished from
"apes".
Scientific classifications are now more often based on monophyletic groups, that is groups
consisting of all the descendants of a common ancestor.
The New World monkeys and the Old World monkeys are each monophyletic groups, but their combination
is not, since it excludes hominoids.
Thus the term "monkey" no longer refers to a recognized scientific taxon.
The smallest accepted taxon which contains all the monkeys is the infraorder Simiiformes,
or simians.
However this also contains the hominoids, so that monkeys are, in terms of currently
recognized taxa, non-hominoid simians.
Colloquially and pop-culturally, the term is ambiguous and sometimes monkey includes
non-human hominoids.
A group of monkeys may be commonly referred to as a tribe or a troop.
Physical description
Monkeys range in size from the pygmy marmoset, which can be as small as 117 millimetres with
a 172-millimetre tail and just over 100 grams in weight, to the male mandrill, almost 1
metre long and weighing up to 36 kilograms.
Some are arboreal while others live on the savanna; diets differ among the various species
but may contain any of the following: fruit, leaves, seeds, nuts, flowers, eggs and small
animals.
Some characteristics are shared among the groups; most New World monkeys have prehensile
tails while Old World monkeys have non-prehensile tails or no visible tail at all.
Old World monkeys have trichromatic color vision like that of humans, while New World
monkeys may be trichromatic, dichromatic, or—as in the owl monkeys and greater galagos—monochromatic.
Although both the New and Old World monkeys, like the apes, have forward-facing eyes, the
faces of Old World and New World monkeys look very different, though again, each group shares
some features such as the types of noses, cheeks and rumps.
Classification
The following list shows where the various monkey families are placed in the classification
of living primates.
ORDER PRIMATES Suborder Strepsirrhini: non-tarsier prosimians
Suborder Haplorhini: tarsiers, monkeys, and apes
Infraorder Tarsiiformes Family Tarsiidae: tarsiers
Infraorder Simiiformes: simians Parvorder Platyrrhini: New World monkeys
Family Callitrichidae: marmosets and tamarins Family Cebidae: capuchins and squirrel monkeys
Family Aotidae: night monkeys Family Pitheciidae: titis, sakis, and uakaris
Family Atelidae: howler, spider, and woolly monkeys
Parvorder Catarrhini Superfamily Cercopithecoidea
Family Cercopithecidae: Old World monkeys
Superfamily Hominoidea: apes Family Hylobatidae: gibbons
Family Hominidae: great apes including humans
Relationship with humans The many species of monkey have varied relationships
with humans.
Some are kept as pets, others used as model organisms in laboratories or in space missions.
They may be killed in monkey drives or used as service animals for the disabled.
In some areas, some species of monkey are considered agricultural pests, and can cause
extensive damage to commercial and subsistence crops.
This can have important implications for the conservation of endangered species, which
may be subject to persecution.
In some instances farmers' perceptions of the damage may exceed the actual damage.
Monkeys that have become habituated to human presence in tourist locations may also be
considered pests, attacking tourists.
In religion and culture, the monkey often represents quick-wittedness and mischief.
As service animals for the disabled Some organizations train capuchin monkeys
as service animals to assist quadriplegics and other people with severe spinal cord injuries
or mobility impairments.
After being socialized in a human home as infants, the monkeys undergo extensive training
before being placed with a disabled person.
Around the house, the monkeys assist with feeding, fetching, manipulating objects, and
personal care.
In experiments
The most common monkey species found in animal research are the grivet, the rhesus macaque,
and the crab-eating macaque, which are either wild-caught or purpose-bred.
They are used primarily because of their relative ease of handling, their fast reproductive
cycle and their psychological and physical similarity to humans.
Worldwide, it is thought that between 100,000 and 200,000 non-human primates are used in
research each year, 64.7% of which are Old World monkeys, and 5.5% New World monkeys.
This number makes a very small fraction of all animals used in research.
Between 1994 and 2004 the United States has used an average of 54,000 non-human primates,
while around 10,000 non-human primates were used in the European Union in 2002.
The use of monkeys in laboratories is controversial.
Animal rights activists claim that their use is cruel and produces little information of
value, and there have been many protests, vandalism to testing facilities and threats
to workers.
Others claim that it has led to many important medical breakthroughs such as the rabies vaccine,
understanding of human reproduction and basic knowledge about brain function and that the
prevention of harm to humans should be a higher priority than the possible harm done to monkeys.
The topic has become a popular cause for animal rights and animal welfare groups.
In space
A number of countries have used monkeys as part of their space exploration programmes,
including the United States and France.
The first monkey in space was Albert II, who flew in the US-launched V-2 rocket on June
14, 1949.
As food Monkey brains are eaten as a delicacy in parts
of South Asia, Africa and China.
In traditional Islamic dietary laws, the eating of monkeys is forbidden.
However, monkeys are sometimes eaten in parts of Africa, where they can be sold as "bushmeat".
Literature
Sun Wukong, a character who figures prominently in Chinese mythology, is the main protagonist
in the classic comic Chinese novel Journey to the West.
Monkeys are prevalent in numerous books, television programs, and movies.
The television series Monkey and the literary characters Monsieur Eek and Curious George
are all examples.
Informally, the term "monkey" is often used more broadly than in scientific use, and may
be used to refer to apes, particularly chimpanzees, gibbons, and gorillas.
Author Terry Pratchett alludes to this difference in usage in his Discworld novels, in which
the Librarian of the Unseen University is an orangutan who gets very violent if referred
to as a monkey.
Another example is the use of Simians in Chinese poetry.
The Winged monkeys are prominent characters in The Wizard of Oz.
Religion and worship Hanuman, a prominent divine entity in Hinduism,
is a Human-like monkey god.
He bestows courage, strength and longevity to the person who thinks about him or the
god Rama.
In Buddhism, the monkey is an early incarnation of Buddha but may also represent trickery
and ugliness.
The Chinese Buddhist "mind monkey" metaphor refers to the unsettled, restless state of
human mind.
Monkey is also one of the Three Senseless Creatures, symbolizing greed, with the tiger
representing anger and the deer lovesickness.
The Mizaru, or three wise monkeys, are revered in Japanese folklore, together they embody
the proverbial principle to "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil".
The Moche people of ancient Peru worshipped nature.
They placed emphasis on animals and often depicted monkeys in their art.
The Tzeltal people of Mexico worshipped monkeys as incarnations of their dead ancestors.
Zodiac The Monkey is the ninth in the twelve-year
cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar.
The next time that the monkey will appear as the zodiac sign will be in the year 2016.
See also
List of New World monkey species List of Old World monkey species
List of individual monkeys List of fictional primates
List of primates by population Signifying monkey
References
External links "The Impossible Housing and Handling Conditions
of Monkeys in Research Laboratories", by Viktor Reinhardt, International Primate Protection
League, August 2001 The Problem with Pet Monkeys: Reasons Monkeys
Do Not Make Good Pets, an article by veterinarian Lianne McLeod on About.com
Helping Hands: Monkey helpers for the disabled, a U.S. national non-profit organization based
in Boston Massachusetts that places specially trained capuchin monkeys with people who are
paralyzed or who live with other severe mobility impairments