Monkeys that escaped a lab are a species used for human research since the 1800s

The 43 rhesus macaque monkeys that escaped a South Carolina medical lab this week are among the most studied animals on the planet. “Every large research university in the United States probably has some rhesus macaques hidden somewhere in the basement of its medical school,” according to the 2007 book, “Macachiavellian Intelligence: How Rhesus Macaques and Humans Have Conquered the World.” “The U.S. Army and NASA have rhesus macaques too,” 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 whether the monkeys could learn to pilot planes and launch missiles.” Research begins in the 1890s Humans have been using the rhesus macaque for scientific research since the late 1800s when the theory of evolution gained more acceptance, according to a 2022 research paper by the journal eLife. “The other reason is because rhesus macaques, as primates go, are a pretty hardy species,” said Eve Cooper, the eLife research paper’s lead author and a biology professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder. The rhesus macaque was the third primate genome to be completed, ‘They’re very political’ For those who have studied the behavior of rhesus macaques, the research is just as interesting. Does that sound familiar?” Maestripieri was a consultant for a reality show about some rhesus macaques in India called “Monkey Thieves.” “They basically started following large groups of these rhesus macaques and naming them,” the professor said.