Old World Monkeys

OLD WORLD MONKEYS The Old World or Catarrhine division comprises three families : monkeys, apes and man. The first of these, the Cercopithecidae or tailed monkeys, distinguished from the American monkeys by the features mentioned above, are subdivided into two sub families, first, Cercopithecinae, including the macaques, baboons, mangabeys and guenons, and second, Semnopithecinae, comprising the langurs and the guerezas. In general the Old World monkeys are gregarious, living in small bands or large troops numbering hundreds.

The Cercopithecinae

all have cheek-pouches for tempo rary storage of food. Of this group the macaques, probably the best-known of all monkeys, are widely distributed through India and the East Indies, extending northward to northern China and Japan, while one species, the Barbary ape, inhabits Morocco, Algeria and the Rock of Gibraltar. The macaques are among the most generally adaptable of monkeys and are hardy and long-lived in captivity. Though agile climbers, they are by no means exclusively arboreal and some are entirely terrestrial. They are usually omnivorous and the crab-eating macaque of India lives chiefly on Crustacea. They have fore and hind limbs of about equal length. The thumbs, though short, are opposable and the animals have considerable manual dexterity. There is a median air-sac connected with the larynx. The ischial callosities are well-developed. The tail may be long, short or practically absent, as in the Barbary ape, Inuus ecaudatus. Prominent ex amples are Macacus rhesus, the common rhesus monkey, M. cynomolgus, the crab-eating macaque, M. sinicus, the bonnet monkey, M. silenus, the lion-tailed macaque, all of India, and M. speciosus, the red-faced monkey of Japan.

The baboons constitute a group of large monkeys of terrestrial habit, closely related to the macques, but differing in the great elongation of the muzzle, which gives the head a dog-like form. The skeleton also reflects the terrestrial habits in the form and proportions of the limbs. The various species, mostly of the genus Papio, inhabit practically the whole African continent south of the Sahara, and one extends into Arabia. They live in large troops under the leadership of an old male and are omnivorous, feeding on roots, insects, fruits, etc., and often raiding planta tions. Ore of the largest is the powerful chacma baboon of South

Africa, Papio porcarius. The grey-mantled hamadryas, P. hama dryas, of Abyssinia and Arabia, is the sacred baboon of ancient Egypt. The most remarkable of all is the mandrill, P. sphinx of west Africa. This is one of the weirdest and most gorgeously coloured of mammals. The nose is scarlet, the cheeks bear cor rugated swellings of brilliant blue and the posterior part of the body exhibits various tints of violet and scarlet, while the fur shows great variety of colour on different parts of the body. An aberrant form placed in a separate genus is the gelada baboon of Abyssinia, Theropithecus gelada. In this animal the nasal region is concave, the nostrils somewhat short of the tip of the snout and the jaws shorter than in Papio. The baboons are a modified branch of the macaque group and in structural essentials the two types are quite similar. In captivity a hybrid offspring has been produced from a male rhesus macaque and a female mandrill.

The name mangabey is applied to a small group of arboreal fruit-eating monkeys of west Africa, which compose the genus Cercocebus. They are characterized by flesh-coloured or white upper eyelids and they lack laryngeal air sacs. Mangabeys are rather slender animals, with long limbs and tail and are inter mediate between the macaques and the guenons of the genus Lasiopyga (or Cercopithecus). This genus, with several sub genera, comprises a vast number of species, more than any other genus of monkeys, scattered over almost the entire African con tinent, but each occupying a somewhat restricted area. The last lower molar tooth lacks the fifth cusp present in the other Old World monkeys thus far described. The fur is commonly "ticked," i.e., the hairs ringed with light and dark colours, and many species exhibit brilliant tints. Whiskers and beards are common. The guenons are mostly rather small arboreal monkeys, inhabiting forests and subsisting on fruits and leaves. Their cheek-pouches are exceptionally capacious. Of the vast number of species a few of the more familiar forms, to give only the common names, are the green monkey, mona, diana, grivet, vervet, deBrazza monkey and moustached monkey. These, and many others, are common inhabitants of zoological gardens.