Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
genetic structure of the former than about that of the latter
species. Given the probable greater antiquity of M. nem-
estrina compared with that of the rhesus or longtail
macaque and its geographical range throughout Southeast
Asia, it is likely that the level of genetic subdivision of this
species equals that of rhesus and longtail macaques.
However, less consideration is currently given to the
country of origin of members of this species, relative to that
of rhesus and longtail macaques, when using them as
animal models, and their country of origin is seldom
reported in published studies in which they are used as
subjects. The ancestry of most pigtail macaques bred in
captivity in the USA is believed, but not documented, to be
traceable to southern Sumatra, and to a lesser extent,
Borneo (
WDRMBMR, 2003
). Colonies of pigtail
macaques are maintained at the Oregon, Washington,
Yerkes and Tulane NPRCs, the New Iberia Research Center
in Louisiana, and Johns Hopkins University.
In contrast to the very broad and fragmented
geographical distributions of the four macaque species
discussed above, bonnet macaques (M. radiata), members
of the sinica group of macaque species, are restricted to
a contiguous range in India south of the Godavari River,
which is the southern terminus of the range of Indian rhesus
macaques. Their range is not subdivided by major
geographical barriers likely to foster significant genetic
subdivision within this species. Since they, like pigtail
macaques, are geographically disjoined from other
species (e.g. M. sinica, M. assamensis, M. thibetana, and
M. munzala) of the monophyletic sinica group of macaque
species to which they belong, bonnet macaques probably
diverged earlier than the fascicularis group of macaque
species whose current ranges are all geographically
contiguous (
Fooden, 1988
). Bonnet macaques are as
phylogenetically distant from M. nemestrina as they are
from rhesus, longtail, or Japanese macaques, but they
exhibit far less population structure (i.e. genetic subdivi-
sion) than at least the first three, and perhaps all four, of
these species (detailed genetic studies of the population
structure of M. cyclopis have not been done). Colonies of
bonnet macaques are maintained by the Downstate Primate
Behavior Laboratory of the State University of New York in
Brooklyn and the Wake Forest University Primate Center in
Winston-Salem, North Carolina (recently transferred from
the University of Colorado Health Science Center's
Primate Research Facility in Denver). NIH also provides
financial support of a colony of bonnet macaques at the
National Center for Primate Breeding and Research, in
Mumbai (Bombay), India.
from Theropithecus gelada. The divergence among these
three genera may have resulted from the formation of the
Sahara Desert near the end of the Miocene (
Delson, 1980;
Schuster et al., 2006
). Thus, while the Gelada baboon has
co-opted the name “baboon,” it is not a true baboon and
is excluded from the genus Papio. The baboons are
subdivided into at least five taxa (
Groves, 2001
) that have
been variously regarded as either distinct species or
subspecies of the superspecies P. hamadryas. The closely
related yellow (Papio cynocephalus or P. hamadryas
cynocephalus) and olive (P. anubis or P. h. anubis) baboons
or hybrids of these two baboon varieties are most frequently
used in biomedical research, and the chacma baboon
(P. ursinus or P. h. ursinus), the Papio from southern Africa
that is the most genetically distant and primative of the five
taxa (
Newman et al., 2004
), is least often used.
Both
Rogers (2000)
and
Disotell (2000)
follow
Jolly
(1993)
in considering the Papio taxa as subspecies of
a single superspecies, P. hamadryas. Others (e.g.
Buettner-
Janush, 1966
), focusing principally on the unique
morphology and behavior of hamadryas baboons, have
recognized only two species of baboons, P. hamadrayas
and P. cynocephalus, with the latter (“savanna”) species
subdivided into four subspecies (P. cynocephalus anubis,
P. c. cynocephalus, P.c. ursinus, and P. c. papio).
Jolly
(2007)
, in agreement with
Groves (2001)
, now regards the
five baboon taxa as distinct species. Some regard one of the
three recognized taxa of yellow baboon (the kinda baboon)
and one of the three recognized taxa of the chacma baboon
(the grey footed baboon) as separate species (or subspecies)
in their own right (
Jolly, 1993; Zinner et al., 2011
), but
these two taxa have not been sufficiently studied to reach
a consensus on their systematic status. Most taxonomists
who favor species status for all five major baboon varieties
recognize the five species cited above as Papio anubis (the
olive), P. cynocephalus (the yellow), P. ursinus (the
chacma), P. papio (the guinea or red), and P. hamadryas,
respectively.
Jolly (1993)
would probably now regard the
kinda baboon as a species in its own right but would
consider the grey footed baboons as P. ursinus griseipes.
The baboons of Africa provide an alternative model for
AIDS (
Locher
et al., 2002
) but are less commonly used in
biomedical research than macaques (
Rogers and Hixson,
1997
), excepting the Japanese and bonnet macaques, and
are approximately as closely related to macaques as are
humans to chimpanzees. Like the rhesus and longtail
macaques, some of the different baboon taxa (especially the
closely related olive and yellow baboons) are known to
interbreed naturally where their ranges converge in hybrid
zones. These varieties also interbred at centers that breed
them domestically for biomedical research and the
ancestry, country of origin, species, and/or subspecies of
some animals is not known with certainty. Most of the
approximately 4000 baboons bred in captivity in the USA
Baboons
The genus Papio is younger than the genus Macaca,
emerging in southern Africa about 4 mya after diverging
