Barbary macaque
Barbary macaque Temporal range:
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Young Barbary macaque with its mother | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Primates |
Suborder: | Haplorhini |
Infraorder: | Simiiformes |
Family: | Cercopithecidae |
Genus: | Macaca |
Species: | M. sylvanus[1]
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Binomial name | |
Macaca sylvanus[1] | |
Native Range in Red (Northeast Africa); Introduced Range in Violet (Gibraltar) | |
Synonyms[4] | |
Simia sylvanus Linnaeus, 1758 |
The Barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus), also known as Barbary ape, is a macaque species native to the Atlas Mountains of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, along with a small introduced population in Gibraltar.[2] It is the
The diet of the Barbary macaque consists primarily of plants and insects and they are found in a variety of habitats. Males live to around 25 years old while females may live up to 30 years.[6][7] Besides humans, they are the only free-living primates in Europe. Although the species is commonly referred to as the "Barbary ape", the Barbary macaque is actually a true monkey. Its name refers to the Barbary Coast of Northwest Africa.
The population of the
Taxonomy and phylogeny
The Barbary macaque is first described in scientific literature by
Phylogeny
The Barbary macaque is the most
Polymerase chain reaction studies have found Alu element insertions, small pieces of genetic code in genomes, can infer primate phylogenetic relationships. Using this method the phylogenetic relationship of ten species within the genus Macaca has been resolved, showing the Barbary macaque to be a sister group to all other macaques.[11]
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Fossil record
Barbary macaque
Description
The Barbary macaque has a dark pink face with a pale buff to golden brown to grey pelage and a lighter underside. The colour of mature adults changes with ages.
Like all Old World monkeys, the Barbary macaque has well-developed sitting pads (
Distribution and habitat
Historically, the Barbary macaque occurred across North Africa from Libya to Morocco.
The Barbary macaque also occurs in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar at the southern tip of Europe's Iberian Peninsula. Gibraltar historian Alonso Hernández del Portillo noted in the early 17th century that the macaques had been present "from time immemorial".[22] Most likely, the Moors introduced macaques from North Africa to Gibraltar during the Middle Ages.[23] During World War II, Winston Churchill ordered for more Barbary macaques to be introduced to Gibraltar to reverse population declines.[22] Today, there are around 300 Barbary macaques in Gibraltar.[2]
It can live in a variety of habitats, such as
Fossil evidence indicates that the Barbary macaque occurred in southern Europe during the Pleistocene and during interglacial periods also in England.[25] A Tunisian population was mentioned in the works of ancient Greek writer Herodotus, indicating the species has become extinct there within the last 2,500 years.[7]
Behaviour and ecology
The Barbary macaque is gregarious, forming mixed groups of several females and males. Troops can have 10 to 100 individuals and are
The mating season runs from November through March. The gestation period is 147 to 192 days, and females usually have only one offspring per pregnancy. Females rear twins in rare instances. Offspring reach maturity at three to four years of age, and may live for 20 years or more.[27]
Male Barbary macaques interfere in conflicts and form coalitions with other males, usually with related males rather than with unrelated males. These relationships suggest that males do so in order to indirectly increase their own fitness. Furthermore, males form coalitions with closely related kin more often than they do with distantly related kin.[29] These coalitions are not permanent and may change frequently as male ranking within the group changes. Although males are more likely to form coalitions with males who have helped them in the past, this is not as important as relatedness in determining coalitions.[29] Males avoid conflicting with higher ranking males and will more frequently form coalitions with the higher ranking male in a conflict.[29] Close grouping of males occur when infant Barbary macaques are present. Interactions between males are commonly initiated when a male presents an infant macaque to an adult male who is not caring for an infant, or when an unattached male approaches males who are caring for infants. This behaviour leads to a type of social buffering, which reduces the number of antagonistic interactions among males in a group.[26]
An open mouth display by the Barbary macaque is used most commonly by juvenile macaques as a sign of playfulness.[30]
Alarm calls
The main purpose of calls in Barbary macaques is to alert other group members to possible dangers such as
Barbary macaque females have the ability to recognize their own offspring's calls through a variety of acoustic parameters. Because of this, infant calls do not have to differ dramatically for mothers to be able to recognize their own infant's call. Mothers demonstrate different behaviours on hearing the calls of other infant macaques as opposed to the calls of their own offspring. More parameters for vocalizations lead to more reliable identification of calls in both infants and in adult macaques so it is not surprising that the same acoustic characteristics that are heard in infant calls are also heard in adult calls.[33]
Mating
Although Barbary macaques are sexually active at all points during a female's reproductive cycle, male Barbary macaques determine a female's most fertile period by sexual swellings on the female.[34] Mating is most common during a female's most fertile period. The swelling size of the female reaches a maximum around the time of ovulation, suggesting that size helps a male predict when he should mate. This is further supported by the fact that male ejaculation peaks at the same time that female sexual swelling peaks. Change in female sexual behaviour around the time of ovulation is insufficient to demonstrate to the male that the female is fertile. The swellings, therefore, appear necessary for predicting fertility.[21]
Barbary macaque females differ from other nonhuman primates in that they often mate with a majority of the males in their social group. While females are active in choosing sexual associations, the mating behaviour of macaque social groups is not entirely determined by female choice.[34] These multiple matings by females decrease the certainty of paternity of male Barbary macaques and may lead them to care for all infants within the group. For a male to ensure his reproductive success, he must maximize his time spent around the females in the group during their fertile periods. Injuries to male macaques peak during the fertile period, which points to male-male competition as an important determinant of male reproductive success.[34] Not allowing a female to mate with other males, however, would be costly to the male, since doing so would not allow him to mate with more females.[34]
Parenting
Barbary macaques from all age and sex groups participate in alloparental care of infants. Male care of infants has been of particular interest to research because high levels of care from males are uncommon in groups where paternity is highly uncertain. Males even act as true alloparents of infant macaques by carrying them and caring for them for hours at a time as opposed to just demonstrating more casual interactions with the infants. The social status of females plays a role in female alloparental interactions with infants. Higher-ranking females have more interactions, whereas younger, lower-ranking females have less access to infants.[5]
Diet
The diet of the Barbary macaque consists of a mixture of plants and insect prey. It consumes a large variety of
Barbary macaques can cause major damage to the trees in their prime habitat, the
Predators
The Barbary macaque's main predators are the
Threats
Wild populations of Barbary macaques have suffered a major decline in recent years to the point of being declared an endangered species on the IUCN Red List since 2008. The Barbary macaque is threatened by fragmentation and degradation of forest habitat, and poaching for the illegal pet trade; it is also killed in retaliation for raiding crops.[2][37] Today, no accurate data exists on the location and number of individuals out of their natural habitat. An unknown number of individuals are living in zoological collections, at other institutions, in private hands, in quarantine, or waiting to be relocated to appropriate destinations.[2]
The habitat of the Barbary macaque is under threat from increased
The Barbary macaque is threatened by
In the Central High Atlas, the Barbary macaque occurs in relatively small and fragmented areas restricted to the main valleys at elevations of 700–2,400 m (2,300–7,900 ft). In a 2013 study, researchers reported that they found Barbary macaques in relatively small and fragmented habitats in 10 sites, and that the species no longer occurred in four localities. This could be attributed to habitat degradation, hunting activities, the impact of livestock grazing, and disturbance by people. As deforestation for agriculture and overgrazing continues, the remaining forest becomes increasingly fragmented. Consequently, the Barbary macaque is now restricted to small, fragmented relict habitats.[41]
Human use and tourism
Many of the mistaken ideas about human anatomy contained in the writings of Galen are apparently due to his use of the Barbary macaque, the only anthropoid available to him, in dissections.[47] Strong cultural taboos of his time prevented his performing any actual dissections of human cadavers, even in his role as physician and teacher of physicians.[48]
Macaques in Morocco are frequently used as photo props, despite their protected status.[49] Tourists are encouraged to take photos with the animals for a fee. Macaques are also sold as pets in Morocco and Algeria, and exported to Europe to be used as pets and fighting monkeys, both in physical marketplaces and online.[49][50]
Tourists interact with wild monkeys across the globe, and in some situations, tourists may be encouraged to feed, photograph, and touch the monkeys. Although tourism has the potential to bring in money towards conservation goals and provides an incentive for the protection of natural habitats, close proximity and interactions with tourists can also have significant psychological impacts on the Barbary macaques. Fecal samples and stress-indicating behaviours, such as belly scratching, indicate that the presence of tourists has a negative impact on the macaques. Human activities such as taking photographs cause the animals stress, possibly because the people come too close to the animals and make prolonged eye contact (a sign of aggression in many primates). Macaques that live in areas close to human contact have more parasites and lower overall health than those that live in wilder environments, at least in part due to the unhealthy diets they receive as a result of feeding from humans.[51][52]
Several groups of Barbary macaques can be found in tourist sites, where they are affected by the presence of visitors providing food to them. Researchers comparing two such groups in the central High Atlas mountains in 2008 found that the tourist group of Barbary macaques spent significantly more time engaged in resting and aggressive behaviour, and foraged and moved significantly less than the wild group. The tourist group spent significantly less time per day feeding on herbs, seeds, and acorns than the wild group. Human food accounted for 26% of the daily feeding records for the tourist group, and 1% for the wild-feeding group.[43] Scientists who collected data on the seasonal activity budget and diet composition of the endangered Barbary macaque group inhabiting a tourist site in Morocco found that activity budgets and diet of the study group varied markedly among seasons and habitats. The percentage of daily time spent in foraging and moving was lowest in spring, and the daily time spent in resting was highest in spring and summer. The time budget devoted to aggressive display was highest in spring than the other three seasons. There is an increase in the daily feeding time spent eating flowers and fruits in summer, seeds, acorns, roots and barks in winter and autumn, herbs in spring and summer, and a clear increase in consumption of the human food in spring.[42] The tourist and the wild groups did not differ in the proportion of daily records devoted to terrestrial feeding, but the tourist group spent a significantly lower percentage of daily records in terrestrial foraging, moving and resting, while performing more terrestrial aggressive displays more than the wild group. There was no significant difference between the two groups in the proportion of terrestrial feeding records spent eating fruits; but the tourist group had lower daily percentages of terrestrial feeding on leaves, seeds and acorns, roots and barks, and herbs, while it spent higher daily percentages of terrestrial feeding on human food.[44]
Barbary macaques were traded or perhaps given as diplomatic gifts as long ago as the Iron Age, as indicated by remains found in such sites as
See also
- Djebel Babor Nature Reserve
- Trentham Monkey Forest
- Celebes crested macaque
References
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- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Fooden, Jack (2007). Systematic Review of the Barbary Macaque, Macaca sylvanus (Linnaeus, 1758). Fieldiana: Zoology. New series. Vol. 113. Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History.
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- ^ a b McDermott, W. C. (1938). The apes in antiquity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 88–100.
- ^ a b Stiles, Charles Wardell; Orleman, Mabelle Blanche (1927). The nomenclature for man, the chimpanzee, the orang-utan, and the Barbary ape. U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 3–10.
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External links
- ARKive - images and movies of the Barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus)
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.