148 Fun Facts About Monkeys

Which group of monkeys lives mainly in Central and South America and often has prehensile tails?

New World Monkeys live in the Americas, and many species, like spider and howler monkeys, have prehensile tails that can grasp objects and support their weight. Old World Monkeys of Africa and Asia do not.

Which primates have an enlarged hyoid bone that acts as a resonating chamber for their calls?

Howler males face a trade-off: the species with the biggest hyoids and deepest roars have the smallest testes, so the loudest males invest in sounding big rather than in sperm.

What is the heaviest monkey species, known for red and blue facial ridges?

The Mandrill is the largest monkey, and a male's colours advertise his rank: dominant males wear the most vivid reds and blues and father most of the young.

Which of these continents has no native monkey species?

Australia has no native monkeys: its marsupials, kangaroos and possums among them, fill many of the niches that placental mammals hold on other continents.

Which of these Old World monkeys is endemic to the island of Borneo?

The Proboscis Monkey lives only on Borneo; the male's huge nose works as a resonator for his honks, and females are thought to prefer the loudest callers.

Which New World monkeys, the only neotropical primates that frequently use tools in the wild, crack open nuts with stones?

Capuchin monkeys position a nut on a flat anvil stone and strike it with a heavier hammer stone, choosing hammers of specific weights for different foods.

Old World Monkeys typically have nostrils that face in which direction?

Downward: Old World monkeys share narrow noses and down-pointing nostrils with apes and humans, whereas American monkeys have flat noses with nostrils opening sideways.

Which dietary label fits most monkey species?

Omnivores: most monkeys mix fruit, leaves and seeds with insects and eggs, and baboons go further, catching rodents, birds and even young gazelles.

On which continent do wild monkeys live in just one place, a rocky British territory?

Europe's only wild monkeys are the few hundred Barbary macaques of Gibraltar, probably brought over from North Africa centuries ago; their numbers are rising while their African cousins decline.

In the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, the flying monkeys serve which character?

The Wicked Witch of the West commands them on screen, but in L. Frank Baum's book the Winged Monkeys belong to no one: they must obey whoever wears the Golden Cap, three times each.

Which Indiana Jones film features a spy monkey that dies after eating a poisoned date?

Raiders of the Lost Ark: the capuchin spies on Indy and Marion in Cairo for the villains, then saves his life by accident when it eats a poisoned date meant for him.

What is the common collective noun for a group of monkeys?

A Troop is the usual collective noun for monkeys; mandrill 'hordes' in Gabon's Lopé National Park have been counted at over 800 animals, among the largest primate groups known.

The pygmy marmoset, the world's smallest monkey, lives in the rainforest of which river basin?

The Amazon basin's western forests are home to the pygmy marmoset, which weighs only about 100 grams and keeps in touch with its family through an intricate system of trilled calls.

What do macaques and baboons use their internal cheek pouches for?

Storing food temporarily: cheek pouches let these monkeys cram in food quickly while the picking is good, then carry it away to eat at leisure.

Which word best describes the lifestyle of most New World monkeys?

Arboreal: almost all New World monkeys live in the trees, and the monkeys that have taken to life on the ground, such as baboons, are all Old World species.

Which monkey species is famous for soaking in hot springs in winter, a habit begun in the 1960s?

Japanese macaques at Jigokudani began soaking in the early 1960s, and within months the whole group had joined in; winter bathing is linked to lower stress levels.

The gelada, a monkey with a bare red 'bleeding heart' chest patch, lives only in which country's highlands?

Ethiopia's highlands hold every wild gelada, the last surviving species of a genus that once ranged across Africa and as far as Spain and India.

Which monkey species is known for its strong affinity for water and is considered a good swimmer?

Rhesus macaques swim readily: in the 1930s a Florida tour operator released some on an island in the Silver River, expecting them to stay put, and they simply swam ashore.

Digs in Brazil show capuchin monkeys have used stone tools to crack nuts for roughly how long?

About 3,000 years: stone hammers dug up in Serra da Capivara National Park go back that far, and their changing sizes show the monkeys switched to different foods over time.

In snowy winters, the golden snub-nosed monkey of China survives mainly on which unusual food?

Lichens cling to the trees all winter, when leaves and fruit are gone, so the monkeys of China's snowy mountain forests live mainly on them from November to April.

Among South America's monkeys, the mustachioed emperor tamarin is allegedly named after which ruler?

Wilhelm II, Germany's last Kaiser, is said to be the namesake, hence the scientific name imperator; the tamarin's own white moustache droops right past its shoulders.

The golden lion tamarin's entire wild range lies within which Brazilian state?

Rio de Janeiro state holds every wild golden lion tamarin; down to about 200 animals by the 1970s, the species had climbed back to some 4,800 by a 2023 census, helped by releases of zoo-bred monkeys.

Dusky leaf monkeys are dark-furred as adults, but their babies are born with fur of what color?

Bright orange newborns stand out against their dark-furred parents, but the color fades within months; infants are also taken from the wild and sold as pets.

The critically endangered cotton-top tamarin is found in the wild only in which country?

Colombia is the cotton-top tamarin's only home, in forest fragments of the country's northwest; tens of thousands were exported for biomedical research before CITES protection in 1976, and only a few thousand remain wild.

Spider monkeys, which hang by their tails with arms longer than their legs, lack what?

Thumbs are absent or reduced to a nub in spider monkeys, leaving a hook-like hand for swinging; dangling by the prehensile tail with limbs loose gives them their spidery look.

Miss Baker, who rode an Army missile into space in 1959 and lived until 1984, was what kind of monkey?

Squirrel monkey Miss Baker lived out her days at a space museum in Alabama, where schoolchildren sent her 100 to 150 letters a day and visitors leave bananas on her grave.

Able, the rhesus who flew with Miss Baker in 1959, died four days later during what?

Electrode-removal surgery should have been routine, but Able's heart stopped under the anaesthetic; her body was preserved and went to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.

Albert II, the first monkey in space in 1949, rode which type of rocket?

Albert II rode a captured German V-2 launched from White Sands on 14 June 1949, reaching about 83 miles, but died on impact when the capsule's parachute failed.

Barbary macaques, unusually for monkeys, essentially lack what?

A tail: Barbary macaques have only a vestigial stub, which is why they were long miscalled 'Barbary apes'; they are the sole macaque species living outside Asia.

Which British prime minister ordered Gibraltar's dwindling macaque colony restocked, mindful of a legend about British rule?

Winston Churchill, told during the Second World War that only seven monkeys were left, had more brought over from Morocco and Algeria; legend says Britain will lose the Rock if they ever die out.

Who co-discovered the Rh blood factor, named after the rhesus macaque, with Alexander Wiener?

Karl Landsteiner, already a Nobel laureate for the ABO blood groups, found the factor with Wiener using rhesus monkey blood; the human antigen later proved to be a different one, but the name stuck.

In Harry Harlow's 1950s experiments, which surrogate mother did infant rhesus monkeys prefer?

The cloth-covered one: Harlow's infant monkeys clung to the soft cloth mother and went to the wire one only to feed, even when it alone held the bottle, showing that comfort mattered more than milk.

Vervet monkeys give distinct alarm calls for leopards, eagles and which other predator?

Snakes get their own alarm call, as leopards and eagles do, and each call sets off a different escape: up a tree for a leopard, into dense cover for an eagle.

Capuchin monkeys take their name from an order of what?

Friars of the Capuchin order wear brown hooded robes, and the monkeys' cap of dark hair was thought to resemble the cowl; the same robes are said to have given cappuccino its name.

Night monkeys' genus name Aotus means what?

Earless: Aotus comes from the Greek for 'without ears', because the night monkey's small ears are hidden in fur; they are the only truly nocturnal monkeys and see in monochrome.

Night monkeys are used in research on which disease, being among the few monkeys it infects?

Malaria: night monkeys can catch the human form of the disease, so researchers took large numbers of them from the wild for malaria studies, and biomedical research is counted among the threats they face.

Female uakaris choose mates based on the redness of which body part?

Face: the bald uakari's scarlet face comes from thin, unpigmented skin over dense blood vessels; a paler face signals sickness, so females favour the reddest males.

Unlike other New World monkeys, both sexes of howler monkey have what kind of color vision?

Trichromatic: in most New World monkeys only some females see three colours, but howlers carry extra pigment genes on the X chromosome, so the males share the full-colour view too.

The endangered drill lives in Nigeria, Cameroon and on which island in the Gulf of Guinea?

Bioko, part of Equatorial Guinea, holds the only island drills, which have even been seen on its beaches; on the mainland the species is hemmed in between the Cross and Sanaga rivers.

The gelada, a monkey of Africa's high plateaus, gets up to 90% of its diet from what?

Grass is nearly the whole menu: the gelada picks the blades one at a time with small, sturdy fingers and digs up the roots when the dry season leaves little green to eat.

In ancient Egypt, the hamadryas baboon was sacred to which god?

Thoth himself was sometimes shown as a baboon carrying the moon, and baboon-headed Hapi guarded the lungs in canopic jars.

Which long-legged, ground-dwelling monkey is the fastest runner of all the primates?

The patas monkey can hit about 55 km/h (34 mph), and where most monkeys bolt up a tree, it usually escapes its predators by outrunning them across open ground.

Which manga series, loosely based on Journey to the West, stars a hero named after Sun Wukong?

Dragon Ball's Son Goku is simply Sun Wukong's name in another reading: Akira Toriyama loosely modelled the early story on the Monkey King's quest, then mixed in the kung fu of Jackie Chan films.

The Diana monkey is named for a white brow said to resemble what item of the Roman goddess?

Her bow: the white crescent on its brow was likened to the huntress's weapon; the monkeys are sharp lookouts too, giving different alarm calls for different predators.

The kipunji, a monkey unknown to science until 2003, was found in the highland forests of which country?

Tanzania: two research teams came across the kipunji independently, in forests some 350 km apart, and it proved distinct enough to be given a genus of its own, Rungwecebus.

The Myanmar snub-nosed monkey allegedly does what whenever it rains?

Sneezes: locals told the scientists who described Rhinopithecus strykeri in 2010 that rain runs into its upturned nostrils and makes it sneeze, so it sits with its head between its knees in wet weather.

The lion-tailed macaque is endemic to which Indian mountain range?

Western Ghats: the lion-tailed macaque is endemic to rainforest patches of the Western Ghats in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu; despite its silver mane it is named for the lion-like tuft on its tail.

The crested black macaque behind the famous 'monkey selfie' is native to which Indonesian island?

Sulawesi: on the island in 2011, a crested macaque pressed the shutter on photographer David Slater's camera, and the self-portrait set off years of argument over who owned it.

PETA sued photographer David Slater in 2015 on behalf of a selfie-taking macaque it named what?

Naruto: PETA's 2015 suit claimed the crested macaque Naruto owned the copyright to the selfie; in 2018 the Ninth Circuit ruled animals cannot sue under the Copyright Act.

Which Old World monkey uses stone tools in its daily foraging in Thailand?

The crab-eating macaque hammers open oysters and crabs with stones on the shore; at some tourist sites it has also learned to steal visitors' belongings and barter them back for food.

Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, the first monkeys cloned Dolly-style, were born in 2017 in which city?

Shanghai: the pair were cloned at a Chinese Academy of Sciences institute there, and their names together make Zhonghua, a word for the Chinese nation.

A Japanese macaque named Imo famously began washing what in water before eating it?

Sweet potatoes: on Koshima island in 1953 the young female Imo began rinsing sand off sweet potatoes in a stream, then the sea; her troop copied her, and a garbled retelling spawned the 'hundredth monkey' myth.

Disneynature's 2015 film Monkey Kingdom follows toque macaques living among ancient ruins in which country?

Sri Lanka: the film's macaques live among the ruins of Polonnaruwa, where scientists have studied the wild toque macaques continuously for more than fifty years.

Who narrated Disneynature's Monkey Kingdom?

Tina Fey narrated Monkey Kingdom, giving a comedian's voice to a soap opera of rank: a low-born mother fights to raise her newborn inside a fiercely competitive pecking order.

Which species is the largest of all macaques?

Tibetan macaque males can reach about 18 kg, the heaviest of any macaque; despite the name, most of the species lives in China east of Tibet, as far away as Guangdong.

The dusky leaf monkey of Malaysia and Thailand is also known by what name?

Spectacled langur: white rings around the dusky leaf monkey's eyes look like glasses, earning the name; this leaf-eating colobine ranges from southern Myanmar and Thailand down the Malay Peninsula.

Zanzibar red colobus monkeys eat what unusual substance to help digest toxic young leaves?

Charcoal: Zanzibar red colobus eat charcoal from burnt stumps and kilns, which binds the phenolic toxins in Indian almond and mango leaves; youngsters apparently learn the habit from their mothers.

The muriquis, the largest non-human primates of the Americas, go by what other name?

Woolly spider monkeys, as Brazil's muriquis are also known, include the northern muriqui, whose egalitarian groups have no pecking order, very little fighting and plenty of hugs.

Monkey Day began in 2000 when a Michigan State art student jokingly scribbled it on a friend's what?

Calendar: Casey Sorrow wrote 'Monkey Day' on December 14 as a joke, then he and fellow student Eric Millikin marked it for real, dressing up and aping monkeys with their art-school friends.

In Journey to the West, Sun Wukong the Monkey King was born from what?

A stone: Sun Wukong hatched from a magic stone egg on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, and his cloud-somersault later carries him 108,000 li in a single leap.

Monkey, the classic 1942 English abridgement of Journey to the West, was translated by whom?

Arthur Waley's Monkey won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for 1942 and is still among the most-read English versions, though he left out most of the journey's episodes and nearly all its poems.

The cult 1978–80 TV series Monkey retold a Chinese classic, but which country actually made it?

Japan's Nippon Television made it as Saiyūki and the BBC dubbed it into English; the gentle male monk Tripitaka was played by a woman, the actress Masako Natsume.

Hanuman, the divine monkey of the Ramayana, is traditionally the son of which god?

Vayu, the wind god, is Hanuman's divine father, which is why he is called Pavanputra and Maruti; as a chiranjivi he is held to be immortal, and Shaiva tradition regards him as Shiva's incarnation.

Curious George first appeared in a 1939 French book under what name?

Fifi: the monkey debuted as Fifi in the Reys' 1939 French book Cecily G. and the Nine Monkeys; in June 1940 the couple fled Paris by bicycle carrying the Curious George manuscript.

The Monkees' TV sitcom aired from 1966 to 1968 on which US network?

NBC aired The Monkees on Monday nights from September 1966 to March 1968; producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider created the band for the show, and early records leaned on the Wrecking Crew.

The famous three wise monkeys carving decorates a stable at a shrine in which Japanese town?

Nikkō: the trio is one of eight monkey panels on the sacred stable at Tōshō-gū shrine, carved there because monkeys were long believed to protect horses.

Of the three wise monkeys, which one covers his mouth?

Iwazaru, 'speak no evil', covers his mouth; Mizaru covers his eyes and Kikazaru his ears, the -zaru ending punning on saru, 'monkey'.

The monkey puzzle tree, Araucaria araucana, is the national tree of which country?

Chile's national tree is said to owe its English name to a remark made in a Cornish garden around 1850: that climbing its spiky branches would puzzle a monkey.

Who is the wannabe pirate hero of The Secret of Monkey Island (1990)?

Guybrush Threepwood owes his first name to a file: the artist saved the still-unnamed 'guy' as a Deluxe Paint brush, and 'guybrush' stuck; the game's mood came from Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

Cayo Santiago, home to a free-ranging rhesus colony studied since 1938, lies off which island?

Puerto Rico: primatologist Clarence Carpenter shipped some 400 rhesus macaques from India to the islet in 1938, and their descendants have roamed it freely under scientists' eyes ever since.

The 1981 Silver Spring monkeys case began with a PETA activist undercover at a lab in which state?

Maryland: Alex Pacheco volunteered at Edward Taub's Institute for Behavioral Research in Silver Spring, and his evidence triggered the first US police raid on an animal researcher; the macaques later informed neuroplasticity research.

Which Thai city holds an annual Monkey Buffet Festival for its macaques?

Lopburi sets out a feast of fruit for its macaques on the last Sunday of November; when tourists vanished in 2020, the hungry monkeys turned on residents and the city began mass sterilisation.

Which French mathematician framed the typing-monkeys idea in 1913, an early infinite monkey theorem?

Émile Borel pictured a million monkeys typing ten hours a day and judged that their matching the world's great libraries, absurd as it is, was still likelier than the laws of statistical mechanics failing.

The 1925 Scopes 'Monkey Trial' over teaching evolution took place in Dayton, in which state?

Tennessee convicted Scopes under its Butler Act and fined him $100, but the state Supreme Court threw the verdict out on a technicality: the judge, not the jury, had set the fine.

Which famed lawyer led the defense of teacher John Scopes in 1925?

Clarence Darrow defended Scopes for the ACLU and, in the trial's most famous turn, called the opposing counsel, William Jennings Bryan, to the stand as an expert on the Bible.

Monkeypox was first identified in 1958 among laboratory monkeys in which city?

Copenhagen: Preben von Magnus found the virus there in 1958 in macaques kept for research; it belongs to the same genus as smallpox, which is why smallpox vaccines give protection.

In November 2022 the WHO announced monkeypox would be renamed what?

Mpox: the WHO adopted the new name on 28 November 2022 after researchers, particularly in Africa, urged a change to reduce stigma, with both names used for a year during the transition.

Which was the first New World monkey to have its genome sequenced, in 2014?

Common marmoset: a species widely used in biomedical research, it was sequenced in 2014, and the genome pointed to the genetic changes that may lie behind the family's miniature body size.

The critically endangered pied tamarin is the official mascot of which Brazilian city?

Manaus adopted the pied tamarin as its mascot in 2005, yet the city is also the species' biggest threat: its tiny range lies around Manaus and is being eaten by urban growth.

Jack the baboon, who worked railway signals in 1880s South Africa, received a weekly ration of what?

Beer: Jack was paid twenty cents a day and half a bottle of beer a week for working the signals for James Wide, a signalman who had lost both legs; in nine years he reportedly never made a mistake.

The 1995 film 12 Monkeys was based on which 1962 French short film?

La Jetée tells its time-loop story almost entirely in still photographs, and screenwriters David and Janet Peoples spun its premise into 12 Monkeys.

Who directed the 1995 sci-fi film 12 Monkeys?

Terry Gilliam, the American-born animator of Monty Python, usually films his own scripts but was won over by this one, written by David and Janet Peoples.

Arctic Monkeys formed in 2002 in which English city?

Sheffield's Arctic Monkeys built their following by handing out demo CDs at gigs, which fans shared online; their 2006 debut then became the fastest-selling debut album in UK chart history.

Crystal, the capuchin actress, played the monkey Dexter in which film franchise?

Night at the Museum: Crystal played the key-stealing Dexter in all three films, slapping Ben Stiller on cue, and later turned up as a drug-dealing monkey in The Hangover Part II.

The critically endangered Tonkin snub-nosed monkey is found only in which country?

Vietnam: first described in 1912, the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey was later feared extinct until surviving groups were found; at last count no more than about 250 remained, in a few forests of the far north.

Pygmy marmosets gouge holes in bark to feed mainly on what?

Tree gum is the staple: pygmy marmosets chisel neat round holes in the bark with their lower teeth, return to lap up what oozes out, and work their way up the trunk as old holes run dry.

Which playground fixture did Sebastian Hinton patent in the 1920s, saying it appealed to children's 'monkey instinct'?

The jungle gym's patent argues that climbing is to a child what chasing a ball is to a kitten, instinctive practice, and a later one notes how children love to hang from it upside down by the knees.

'Shock the Monkey' (1982) was the first US Top 40 hit for which English musician?

Peter Gabriel's 'Shock the Monkey' reached No. 29 in the US in 1982, his first Top 40 hit there; he has described it as a love song about jealousy rather than a comment on animal experiments.

In Classic Maya religion, the howler monkey gods were patrons of which group?

Scribes and sculptors: in the Popol Vuh the heroes Hunahpu and Xbalanque turn the older half-brothers who mistreated them into monkeys, and the pair became the patrons of artists and scribes.

Which Kathmandu stupa is nicknamed the 'Monkey Temple' for its resident troops?

Swayambhunath means 'self-arisen': in legend the Kathmandu Valley was a lake until the bodhisattva Manjushri cut a gorge to drain it, so pilgrims could reach a light shining where the stupa now stands.

Which rock band launched its 1997 album The Colour and the Shape with the single 'Monkey Wrench'?

Foo Fighters' 'Monkey Wrench' is Dave Grohl working through the end of his marriage to photographer Jennifer Youngblood; it was the lead single from the band's second album.

Brought on 18th-century slave ships, the African mona monkey lives on which Caribbean island?

Grenada: mona monkeys arrived on slave ships from West Africa and roam Grand Etang's forests; the species is native to forests from Ghana to Cameroon and carries food in cheek pouches.

The Beastie Boys' 'Brass Monkey' is named after what?

An alcoholic drink: Brass Monkey was a cheap premixed cocktail from the Heublein company, name-checked all through the song, and its sales rose after the Beastie Boys' track came out.

The yellow baboon's species name cynocephalus means what in Greek?

Dog-head: cynocephalus joins the Greek words for dog and head, a nod to the baboon's long muzzle; the same word once named a fabled race of dog-headed men.

The critically endangered brown spider monkey is unusual for sometimes having eyes of what color?

Pale blue eyes turn up in only some brown spider monkeys, while most are brown-eyed; hunting and the clearing of its forests are what have left the species critically endangered.

Sock monkeys are made from red-heeled socks first knitted in 1932 in which Illinois city?

Rockford: imitators were selling look-alike 'Rockford' work socks, so in 1932 the Nelson Knitting Company added a red heel to mark the originals, and that heel became the sock monkey's mouth.

Who provided the vocal effects for Abu, Aladdin's pet monkey, in the 1992 Disney film?

Frank Welker supplied Abu's chatter and also growled as Jasmine's tiger Rajah in the same film; the animators filmed real zoo monkeys to get Abu's movements right.

On Friends, which character kept a pet capuchin called Marcel before giving him to a zoo?

Ross gave Marcel up when the monkey reached maturity and later found him working as a film star; on set Marcel was played by a female capuchin named Katie.

A pet monkey named Darwin went viral in 2012, wandering which store's car park in a shearling coat?

IKEA shoppers in Toronto made Darwin famous, but the city ruled him a prohibited pet. He was sent to a primate sanctuary, where he made a best friend named Maximus.

How did Curious George's creators flee Paris in June 1940, carrying the manuscript with them?

By bicycle: Hans Rey assembled two bikes himself, and the couple pedalled out of the city just a few hours before it fell.

Sold through comic-book ads in the 1960s and 1970s, the novelty pets called Sea-Monkeys are really what?

Brine shrimp are supplied as eggs that hatch when added to water. Inventor Harold von Braunhut first sold the kits as Instant Life for 49 cents.

A tour-boat operator's monkeys, released in 1938, founded a wild colony in which US state?

Florida's monkeys were put there by 'Colonel Tooey' to liven up his Jungle Cruise ride. The local legend that they escaped from a Tarzan film shoot is not true.

Pig-tailed macaques in Thailand have been trained for some 400 years to harvest which crop?

Coconuts made the macaques a workforce: training schools for the monkeys have operated in southern Thailand and in the Malaysian state of Kelantan.

Which Mexican painter kept spider monkeys as pets and put them in several self-portraits?

Frida Kahlo shared her home with spider monkeys, parrots and Xoloitzcuintlis, and the monkeys in her paintings often nod to Aztec mythology.

In the infinite monkey theorem, a monkey typing at random eventually produces whose complete works?

William Shakespeare is safe in practice: even with as many monkeys as atoms in the observable universe, the odds of typing a single page of his work are unfathomably small.

South America's first monkeys are thought to have crossed which ocean on rafts of vegetation?

The Atlantic was about a third narrower when the monkeys drifted over, and they were not alone: caviomorph rodents, the group that includes guinea pigs, made the same crossing.

Macaques at Uluwatu Temple steal tourists' sunglasses and barter them back for food on which island?

Bali's temple thieves learn the trade: monkeys new to the area quickly pick up the bartering trick from the locals, and every ransom paid in fruit encourages more theft.

Capuchin monkeys in a famous fairness test rejected cucumber once a partner got which sweeter food?

Grapes were the better wage for the same job of handing back a pebble. Shortchanged monkeys sometimes threw the cucumber at the experimenter or yanked at the dividing screen.

Which virus was first isolated in 1947 from a caged monkey in the Ugandan forest it is named after?

Zika takes its name from Uganda's Ziika Forest, where scientists of the Yellow Fever Research Institute had placed the monkey in a cage. The virus is spread by daytime-active Aedes mosquitoes.

A macaque monkey with a Neuralink brain implant played which classic video game in a 2021 demo?

Pong was played with neural signals alone, in a video released a year after the company showed off an implant in a pig.

Marmosets and tamarins are the only monkeys in which mothers regularly give birth to what?

Twins make up over 80% of births in the species studied, so the mother gets help: the group's males share the job of carrying the babies.

Squirrel monkeys cool themselves in hot weather by rubbing what over their hands and feet?

Urine washing doubles as a cooling trick and a calling card: it carries off heat as it evaporates, and squirrel monkeys also mark territory by rubbing it into their skin.

Wedge-capped capuchin monkeys rub which creatures into their fur, apparently as a mosquito repellent?

Millipedes get rubbed in for up to two minutes at a time, mostly in the rainy season. The monkeys even pop them in their mouths, take them out and carry on rubbing.

Which South American monkeys mate for life and often sit in pairs with their tails entwined?

Titis twine tails while sitting or sleeping side by side, and the fathers are hands-on: they groom, feed and play with the infants more than the mothers do.

Which country's King Alexander died of sepsis in 1920 after a monkey bit him on the royal estate?

Greece paid dearly for the bite: his father Constantine I was restored to the throne, and the country went on to lose the Greco-Turkish War with heavy casualties.

Which country's national bird was long known as the monkey-eating eagle for its supposed diet?

The Philippines' giant eagle got the name from villagers' reports that it preyed only on monkeys. Later studies found it also takes colugos, monitor lizards and even hornbills.

Which storybook heroine shares Villa Villekulla with a horse and a monkey called Mr Nilsson?

Pippi Longstocking's horse is never named in Astrid Lindgren's novels, though the films call him Lilla Gubben, which means Little Old Man.

Dora the Explorer's companion on every quest is a talking monkey with what name?

Boots is named for his beloved pair of red boots, and he sets out on each quest beside Dora and her talking purple backpack.

Which brain cells, firing both when a monkey acts and when it watches, were first studied in macaques?

Mirror neurons turned up at the University of Parma, where researchers had wired a macaque's premotor cortex to study how it controls hand and mouth movements.

ANDi, the first genetically modified monkey, carried a fluorescence gene from which sea creature?

Jellyfish DNA did not make him shine: the gene proved inactive, so ANDi never actually glowed. His name is iDNA spelled backward.

The Community Baboon Sanctuary, which in fact protects black howler monkeys, is in which country?

Belize locals call the black howler a 'baboon', hence the name. The sanctuary runs on voluntary pledges from landowners in seven villages.

An online casino paid $650,000 at auction for the right to do what to a newly found Bolivian monkey species?

Name it they did: the species became Plecturocebus aureipalatii, 'of the Golden Palace', and the money went to the nonprofit that maintains Madidi National Park.

The cotton-top tamarin's wild white crest earned it a German nickname honouring which composer?

Franz Liszt's famous hairstyle is the joke: German speakers call the tiny monkey the Lisztaffe, literally 'Liszt monkey', after the Hungarian piano virtuoso.

People of which English town are nicknamed 'monkey hangers' after a legend from the Napoleonic Wars?

Hartlepool folk supposedly hanged a shipwrecked monkey as a French spy. In 2002 the man inside the football club's monkey mascot, H'Angus, was elected the town's mayor.

Given a keyboard at Paignton Zoo, six macaque monkeys typed five pages made up largely of which letter?

S filled most of the five pages before the experiment fell apart: the lead male bashed the keyboard with a rock, and the others used the machine as a toilet.

The hairless tips of spider monkeys' gripping tails carry skin grooves similar to what on a human?

Fingerprints are the closest match: the grooved, bare tip grips so well that spider monkeys hang from branches by the tail alone, limbs dangling like a spider's legs.

In the Chinese zodiac, the Year of the Monkey comes directly after the year of which animal?

Goat is eighth in the twelve-year cycle and the Monkey ninth, with the Rooster next in line.

A giant monkey is among the animal figures of the Nazca Lines, etched into the desert of which country?

Peru's Nazca Desert holds more than 70 animal designs alongside hundreds of plain lines, among them a hummingbird, a condor, a lizard and a human figure.

Which manga and anime hero, with a tail and a flying cloud, was modelled on the Monkey King of Chinese legend?

Son Goku is simply the Japanese reading of the Chinese name Sun Wukong, and the Dragon Ball hero inherited the Monkey King's staff along with the cloud.

The phrase 'monkey mind', for restless and unsettled thoughts, comes from which religious tradition?

Buddhism pairs the image with a second animal: Chinese and Japanese idioms set the 'mind monkey' beside an 'idea horse' to picture thoughts that will not stay put.

A botched 2012 fresco restoration nicknamed 'Monkey Christ' drew crowds to the town of Borja in which country?

Spain's most famous art accident was the work of an 81-year-old parishioner. In the year that followed it brought 40,000 visits and more than €50,000 for a local charity.

Which singer's 2019 hit 'Dance Monkey' topped the singles charts in more than 30 countries?

Tones and I wrote it about the pressure of keeping street crowds entertained in her busking days. Its 11 weeks at number one in the UK set a record for a female artist.

In Britain, 'monkey nuts' is the everyday name for which snack sold in its shell?

Peanuts are not true nuts at all: the plant is a legume whose seeds ripen in pods underground, hence its other name, the groundnut.

In L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Winged Monkeys must obey whoever wears what?

The Golden Cap lets each owner command the monkeys just three times. It was a princess's price for a prank: they had dropped her fiancé into a river just before the wedding.

Which English author wrote the horror story The Monkey's Paw, about a talisman that grants three wishes?

W. W. Jacobs gave the wishes a hellish price: in the tale an old fakir has enchanted the paw to punish anyone who tampers with fate.

In Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, a monkey with long fur is the daemon of which character?

Mrs Coulter's monkey, gold-furred on the page, is never named in the books; a radio adaptation called him Ozymandias.

In Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, what are the lawless monkeys who kidnap Mowgli called?

Bandar-log is Hindi for 'monkey people'. Kipling makes them scatterbrained anarchists, shunned as pariahs by the rest of the jungle.

The Rally Monkey has been a ballpark good-luck charm since 2000 for which Major League Baseball team?

Los Angeles Angels fans first saw the monkey in June 2000 with the team trailing in the bottom of the ninth. The Angels scored two runs and won, and a mascot was born.

Which strong-swimming monkeys of central Africa are the smallest of all the Old World monkeys?

Talapoins weigh barely a kilogram, males about 1.3 kg and females 0.8, and they swim well enough to look for their food in the water.

What are the tough, hairless sitting pads on the rumps of baboons and macaques called?

Ischial callosities let Old World monkeys sleep sitting upright on thin branches, out of reach of predators, without falling off.

HIV-2 arose from a virus that jumped to humans from which West African monkey?

Sooty mangabeys carry a virus called SIVsmm, which has crossed into people on many occasions because the monkeys and humans live in such close contact.

The lesula, a monkey with strikingly human-like eyes first described in 2012, lives in which country?

DR Congo villagers already knew the lesula well. Scientists first met it in 2007 as a captive animal in the village of Opala, and confirmed the species five years later.

What French name is given to the art genre showing fashionably dressed monkeys imitating human behaviour?

Singerie comes from the French for 'monkey trick'. Its most famous examples are Christophe Huet's painted monkey rooms at the Château de Chantilly.

Moneke, a name linked to the origin of the word 'monkey', is an ape's son in which medieval beast fable?

Reynard the Fox features Moneke as the son of Martin the Ape in a Low German version. The word's origin is uncertain, but it may have reached English with travelling entertainers.

In the Ramayana, what name is given to the monkey people whose army helps Rama defeat Ravana?

Vanaras, whose name means 'forest-dwellers', do more than fight: their architect Nala spans the ocean with a bridge so that Rama and the army can cross.

In South Africa, a 'monkey's wedding' is the popular name for which kind of weather?

A sunshower, rain falling while the sun shines, marries off other animals elsewhere: Afrikaans speakers say the jackal is wedding the wolf's wife.

Dracula simia, a cloud-forest plant from Ecuador with blooms like a monkey's face, is what kind of flower?

An orchid that grows on other plants, it was first placed in the genus Masdevallia. The monkey 'face' is formed by the flower's column, petals and lip.

Which African tree is also called the monkey-bread tree for its soft, dry, edible fruit?

Baobab trees have other nicknames too: 'upside-down tree', because the sparse branches look like roots, and 'cream of tartar tree', for the powdery fruit pulp.