Macaque

The macaques (/məˈkɑːk/ or /məˈkæk/) constitute a genus (Macaca) of Old World monkeys of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. The 23 species of macaques are widespread over Earth.

Description

Aside from humans (genus Homo), the macaques are the most widespread primate genus, ranging from Japan to Indian subcontinent and, in the case of the barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus), to North Africa and Southern Europe. Twenty-three 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.

In some species, skin folds join the second through fifth toes, almost reaching the first metatarsal joint.

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.

Macaca (term)

History & Usage

"Macaca" is a direct translation for "female monkey" in the Portuguese language. The translation for "male monkey " (English) is "macaco" (Portuguese). In Portugal and Portuguese speaking countries, racists often call black people "macaco" or "macacos" (plural form) as an insult, because of their African origins. "Macaco" is also the Portuguese generic word to designate any kind of ape.

According to Robert Edgerton, in the Belgian Congo, colonial whites called Africans macaques—implying that they had lived in the trees until the Europeans arrived. The term sale macaque (filthy monkey) was occasionally used as an insult. In the ceremony in 1960 in which Congo gained its independence from Belgium, Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba gave a speech accusing Belgian King Baudouin of presiding over "a regime of injustice, suppression, and exploitation" before ad-libbing at the end, Nous ne sommes plus vos macaques! (We are no longer your macaques!), as the Congolese in the audience rose to their feet cheering. Lumumba was reportedly still stung by being called a sale macaque by a Belgian woman years earlier.