Officers with the Yemassee Police Department are working to locate several primates after they escaped from a nearby research facility, according to the Beaufort Sheriff’s Office. (Yemassee PD on Facebook)

monkey

(AP) – The 43 rhesus macaque monkeys that escaped a medical laboratory in South Carolina this week are among the most studied animals on the planet. And for more than a century, they’ve held up a mirror to humanity, revealing our strengths and weaknesses through their own intelligent behaviors, organ systems, and genetic code.

Bare-faced, expressive-eyed primates have been launched on rockets into space. Their genome has been mapped. They were even stars of a reality show.

Animal rights groups point out that the species has been subjected to studies on vaccines, organ transplants and the impact of separating infants from their mothers. At the same time, many in the scientific community will tell you how vital their research is to fighting AIDS, polio and COVID-19.

In 2003, a nationwide shortage of rhesus macaques threatened to slow studies, and scientists were paying up to $10,000 per animal to continue their work.

“Every major research university in the United States probably has some rhesus macaques tucked away somewhere in the basement of its medical school,” according to the 2007 book, “Macachiavelic Intelligence: How Rhesus Macaques and Humans Conquered the World.”

“The US military and NASA also have rhesus macaques,” wrote the book’s author, Dario Maestripieri, a behavioral scientist at the University of Chicago, “and for years they trained them to play computer video games to see if the monkeys could learn to fly planes and launch missiles.”

Research began in the 1890s

People have been using rhesus macaques for scientific research since the late 1800s, when the theory of evolution gained more acceptance, according to a 2022 research paper in the journal eLife.

The first study of the species was published in 1893 and described the “anatomy of advanced pregnancy,” according to the eLife paper. By 1925, the Carnegie Institution of Science established a breeding population of monkeys to study embryology and fertility in a species that was similar to humans.

One reason for the animal’s popularity was its abundance. These monkeys have the largest natural range of any non-human primate, stretching from Afghanistan and India to Vietnam and China.

“Another reason is that rhesus macaques, as primates are, are a pretty hardy species,” said Eve Cooper, lead author of the eLife research paper and professor of biology at the University of Colorado-Boulder. “They can live in conditions and be raised in conditions that are relatively easy to maintain.”

NASA rockets and the Salk polio vaccine

In the 1950s, monkey kidneys were used to make the Salk polio vaccine. NASA also used animals during the space race, according to a brief history of animals in space on the agency’s website.

For example, a rhesus monkey named “Miss Sam” was launched in 1960 in a Mercury capsule that reached a speed of 1,800 mph (1,900 km/h) and an altitude of 9 miles (14.5 kilometers). It was recovered in good overall condition.

“She was also returned to her training colony until her death at an unknown date,” NASA wrote.

Mapping the human genome

In 2007, scientists revealed the DNA of the rhesus macaque. The species shared about 93% of its DNA with humans, even though macaques branched off from the ape family about 25 million years ago.

In comparison, humans and chimpanzees have evolved separately since they split from a common ancestor about 6 million years ago, but still share nearly 99 percent of their gene sequences.

The mapping of the human genome in 2001 sparked an explosion of work to similarly decipher the DNA of other animals. The rhesus macaque was the third primate genome to be completed,

“They are very political”

For those who have studied the behavior of rhesus macaques, the research is equally interesting.

“They have some striking similarities to ourselves in terms of their social intelligence,” said Maestripieri, a professor at the University of Chicago who has written a book about the species.

For example, animals are very family-oriented, siding with relatives when arguments break out, he told The Associated Press on Friday. But they also recruit allies when attacked.

“They are very political,” Maestripieri said. “Most of their daily lives are spent building political alliances with each other. Sound familiar?”

Maestripieri was a consultant for a reality show about some rhesus macaques in India called “Monkey Thieves”.

“Basically, they started tracking large groups of these rhesus macaques and naming them,” the professor said. “It was beautifully done because these monkeys occasionally act like people. So it’s fascinating to follow their stories.”