Figure 2

Consensus phylogeny of the genus Macaca placed within the evolutionary history of several Old World primate lineages. Except for the Barbary macaque (M. sylvanus) found in North Africa and Gibraltar, and the stump-tailed or bear macaque (M. arctoides) found in the border regions of India, China and Malaysia, macaques are divided into three main species groups. Divergence patterns and times within Macaca are taken from [11], while those among outgroup lineages are taken from [16]. Note the deep divergence times among the macaques. The dates of the oldest bifurcations are comparable to that estimated for the human-chimpanzee split, and even the youngest bifurcations pre-date the origin of anatomically modern humans by several hundred thousand years. Individual macaque species are likely to have accrued significant genetic diversity, and researchers need to take this into account when designing and interpreting the results of biomedical tests using these animals.