In the Ubud region of Bali, Indonesia comes a companionship straight out of children’s books. Photographer Anne Young was vacationing at the Monkey Forest Park when she spotted a young male long-tailed macaque monkey that had adopted a ginger kitten, protectively caring for and grooming it while keeping other monkeys away. The kitten couldn’t look happier, and neither could the monkey.

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By Karin Bennett

Live and let (die) live: So goes Sir Paul McCartney’s new hit … against NASA’s pricey plan to bankroll the zapping of dozens of squirrel monkeys in cruel radiation experiments.

While his animal rights efforts are legendary, many people may not know that Paul also has a ton of space cred. It’s true: He’s an enthusiastic supporter of space exploration who has performed for the crew of STS-114 and worked with NASA to beam Beatles music into space.

In his letter to the space agency, Paul writes:

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SANTA ANA – The latest arrival at the Santa Ana Zoo is a tuft of shaggy fur about the size of a hamster that’s been spending its days snuggled tight against the chest of its mother.

The baby saki monkey, born May 18, appears to be healthy, although zookeepers haven’t gotten close enough yet to determine whether it’s a boy or a girl. It’s in the zoo’s tropical rainforest exhibit with its parents – Dakota and Aaliyah – and two sisters.

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The answer may surprise you.

Researchers in Japan pitted 5 year old chimpanzees against human adults in a memory test.

Both groups sat in front of video screens with numbers one through nine scattered on them.

One by one the chimps touched the numbers… in the right order.

In more difficult tests the numbers disappeared after the first one was touched.

The chimps remembered where the numbers were and in the right order.

And humans? Not so much.

The research shows when it comes to short-term memory chimps may be higher on the evolutionary chain.

Second in volume only to the blue whale, the black howler monkey is the loudest animal on earth, emitting yells that can be heard up to two miles away. The Zoo’s newest howler monkey was born on May 28 to mother Springer and father Oz, who had their first offspring together about a year ago.

Their baby, whose sex has yet to be determined, clings to its mother 24 hours a day and likely will do so for a few more months before venturing out alone. It has blondish brown hair matching Springer’s, and will stay that way if it’s a female or turn dark black over time if it’s a male.

Black howler monkeys are endangered in their native Latin American rainforests because of hunting and habitat destruction. Their loud howling is most prevalent early in the morning and late at night, and troops in the wild use it to gauge their distance from other howler monkeys they might be competing with for food or territory.

While only able to squeak so far, the infant howler monkey at the Zoo is doing well and is on display in the Primate, Cat & Aquatics Building daily.

The baby, whom zoo staff have named “A.J.,” will spend the first several months of its life clinging to mom as she moves about the enclosure she shares with 12 others of her kind, including a male named Amos.

Native to the rainforests of South America, capuchins normally live in colonies which may consist of up to 30 individuals.

The capuchin uses its opposable thumbs and prehensile tail to assist in reaching fruits, seeds and leaves that make up the vast majority of its diet in the wild.

The lifespan of a capuchin monkey is 35 to 40 years in captivity and probably ten years less in the wild because of predators and potential illnesses.

“Amanda is approximately 20 years old,” zoo director Steven Diehl said.

Contrary to what many people believe, monkeys do not make good pets. Monkeys have the ability to seriously injure humans. When scared or threatened, they will not hesitate to urinate or defecate on someone who may be handling or holding them. The canine teeth that monkeys possess are designed to slash, slice and penetrate the though husks of coconuts and other organic fare that they feed on.

While television and movies such as “Pirates of the Caribbean,” which features a capuchin monkey, would suggest they do indeed make good pets, what most people don’t realize is that primates used for movies and television are usually juveniles who have not yet reached maturity.

Most chimps used in film work are less than 3 years old.

“The availability of this genome sequence will enable new and better experiments that will speed up the pace of research and reduce the number of animals needed for biomedical research in the long run,” the paper states.

David Glenn Smith, a professor in the department of anthropology and one of the lead authors on a related paper focusing on population studies comparing Indian and Chinese macaques, said an important part of understanding human disease is trying to localize where genes that influence them are found in the genome.

According to Smith, rhesus monkeys are the principal animal model for studies of diseases common in the human population primarily because the two share about 93 percent of their DNA sequence. Chimpanzee genomes had been available before the rhesus sequencing effort, but were not as useful because they diverged recently in evolutionary history from humans, according to the paper.

Smith said in order to understand how genes influence phenotypic effects, researchers will look at genetic differences in various parts of the rhesus genome, thus getting an idea where in the genome there are correlations between different genes and susceptibility to disease.

“The differences between rhesus macaques and humans can be looked at as a genetic difference, and then we can ask where the phenotypic differences are and what genes those phenotypic differences correlate with, and we can find out genetic reasons for humans to be as they are,” he said.

Sreetharan Kanthaswamy, a professional researcher at the California National Primate Research Center in Davis, said the rhesus sequencing will provide a complete pedigree of diseases with a genetic background. Subsequently, knowing how the disease evolved will give researchers a better understanding of how to treat it.

“Now you have this huge toolbox where you have a disease and it’s got an address now and you can pinpoint where this disease lives,” he said.

The CNPRC, according to Smith, is part of a network of eight national primate research centers sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. One center located on the UC Davis campus houses approximately 4,700 monkeys, according to its website.

Smith said the availability of the rhesus monkey genome map will be a boon to the Davis research center, which focuses on assistive reproductive technology and pulmonary and infectious disease research.

Additionally, both researchers agreed that undergraduate students have a unique opportunity in being able to intern and participate in research at the center, setting themselves up for what Kanthaswamy described as the “boom time” for rhesus monkey scientists.

Jenni Trethowan who is with the baboon monitoring group Baboon Matters said it was likely the young male, called David, was searching for a new troop to join.

But David encountered many obstacles, including a very busy main road.

On Wednesday, he caused drama in Claremont’s Main Road.

David’s adventures brought him a gash on his leg, which Trethowan said could be from another baboon or a dog-bite.

With the help of the SPCA, David was darted on Wednesday afternoon and taken to a vet in Sun Valley for treatment.

Trethowan said it was a reasonably deep flesh wound, right through his muscles.

He was scheduled to stay at the vet for the night, pending a decision to take him to a rehabilitation centre in Barrydale.

David was first spotted by Constantia residents on Tuesday and he made his way during the day to the roof of Claremont police station. He spent the night somewhere nearby before he apparently made for Wynberg on Wednesday.

While in Claremont, David was surrounded and tranquillised.