The Natural History of Model Organisms: The rhesus macaque as a success story of the Anthropocene
- Department of Anthropology, New York University, United States
- Department of Psychology, University of Exeter, United Kingdom
- School of Life Sciences, Center for Evolution and Medicine, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, and the ASU-Banner Neurodegenerative Disease Research Center, Arizona State University, United States
- Biopsychological Laboratory, University of Mysore, India
- National Institute for Advanced Studies, India
- Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, India
- Institute of Genetics and Animal Biotechnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
- Department of Biology, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
- National Primate Research Center of Thailand, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
- Key Laboratory of Ecology of Rare and Endangered Species and Environmental Protection, Guangxi Normal University, China
Figures
Figure 1
Time-calibrated phylogenetic tree of the 24 macaque (Macaca) species based on molecular data.
The Macaca genus diverged from other members of the primate tribe Papionini approximately 7 million years ago. The position of the rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) is highlighted by the red box. Phylogeny constructed using TimeTree (Kumar et al., 2017).
Figure 2
Geographical range across South and South-East Asia of rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) and 9 other extant sister species in the Macaca genus.
The 10 species shown in different colors represent a complete monophyletic group, with the exception of Macaca leucogenys, which is missing because its complete range information is not yet known with high confidence. Rhesus macaques (blue shaded area) have the largest natural range of any non-human primate, which stretches from Afghanistan in the west, through Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and across a large swathe of China in the east. Figure based on ICUN Red List species range estimates.
Figure 3
The diets of rhesus macaques can include both natural and anthropogenic food sources.
Rhesus macaques are shown eating (A) Deciduous foliage in Buxa Tiger Reserve, West Bengal, India, (B) Conifer foliage in Shimla, India, (C) Wheat crop in an agricultural area of Himachal Pradesh, India, (D) A popsicle in Haridwar, India, (E) A candy bar in Shimla, India, (F) A tea bun in Buxa Tiger Reserve, West Bengal, India.
Photos taken by Suresh Roy (A, F), Shaurabh Anand (C), Rishabh Bharadwaj (D), and Stefano Kaburu (B, E).
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The Natural History of Model Organisms: The rhesus macaque as a success story of the Anthropocene
eLife 11:e78169.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.78169
