primate

WTF Fun Fact 13613 – First Chimeric Monkey

Researchers have made a monumental stride in primate research by making the first chimeric monkey.

This marks the first successful birth of a chimeric monkey from embryonic stem cell lines. This scientific achievement has profound implications for the fields of genetic engineering, species conservation, and biomedical studies.

Understanding Chimerism in Primates

The study, led by senior author Zhen Liu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, culminated in the birth of a monkey with cells originating from two distinct embryos. Until now, this feat of chimerism had been achieved only in smaller mammals such as rats and mice. Published in the prestigious journal Cell, the research opens new avenues for understanding pluripotency. That’s the capability of stem cells to differentiate into any cell type—in non-human primates and possibly humans.

The cynomolgus monkeys, commonly used in biomedical research, served as the subjects for this groundbreaking experiment. The researchers established nine stem cell lines from blastocyst embryos and selected a subset of these pluripotent cells to inject into early-stage monkey embryos. This meticulous process led to several pregnancies and the birth of six live monkeys. One of these showcased a substantial level of chimerism.

The Making of a Chimeric Monkey

The researchers tagged the stem cells with green fluorescent protein. This enabled them to trace which tissues originated from the stem cells. Extensive analysis revealed that the chimeric monkey exhibited a wide distribution of stem-cell-derived tissues across the brain, heart, kidney, liver, and gastrointestinal tract. Remarkably, the live monkey displayed stem cell contributions ranging from 21% to 92% across various tissues, averaging 67%.

The presence of stem-cell-derived cells in the reproductive tissues was a significant discovery. It underscors the potential for these cells to contribute to the germline and possibly influence future generations.

Implications and Future Directions

The success of this study is not merely academic. It has practical implications, offering the potential to create more precise monkey models for neurological and other biomedical research. By enhancing the understanding of primate cell developmental potential, the study paves the way for innovative approaches in medical science.

Looking ahead, the team aims to refine their method to increase the efficiency of generating chimeric monkeys. They plan to optimize the stem cell cultures and the blastocysts’ environments, hoping to improve the survival rates of these embryos in host animals.

In conclusion, the birth of the first chimeric monkey from embryonic stem cells is a remarkable scientific milestone. It broadens our knowledge of primate biology and holds promise for future applications that could benefit both primate conservation and human health.

— WTF fun facts

Source: “First live birth of a chimeric monkey using embryonic stem cell lines” — ScienceDaily

WTF Fun Fact 12833 – The Aye Aye: Animals Deemed “Demons”

The aye-aye isn’t a particularly adorable creature, but it is the largest nocturnal animal on Earth. It spends its entire life in the trees, but the aye-aye is also an animal unfairly labeled as a “demon primate” by some Madagascar locals.

What makes aye-ayes so creepy?

Aye-ayes were originally thought to be rodents because of their pointy snouts and rat-like front teeth. However, they’re actually a type of lemur.

These primates live exclusively in Madagascar, but locals tend not to be fans. Not only do the small creatures look a bit spooky, they have one long, witch-like middle finger that they use to tap into trees to look for food.

According to CGNT News (cited below): “The reason why this small animal, the size of a cat, is a “demon animal” to the locals might be because of its appearance. Its round yellow eyes in the dark along with its bony long fingers tapping on tree branches continuously resembles a cat that might have been bitten by a vampire.”

That’s certainly one way to put it! And it explains why people don’t always treat the animals kindly when they run across them. It’s believed that when an aye-aye points its middle finger at you, you’re marked for death. This leads some people to try and kill them on sight.

Why is the animal called an aye-aye?

The aye-aye’s name is also something of a mystery. CGNT posits that “One explanation of aye-aye’s name is that it derives from the Malagasy phrase ‘heh-heh,’ which means ‘I don’t know.’ If this is true, it could be that Malagasy people used ‘heh heh’ to avoid saying the name of a feared, magical animal.”

“Evil” and endangered

Because aye-ayes are considered “demons,” they’ve suffered from killings as well as the deforestation that affects other animals in Madagascar. Now, they’re an endangered species.

Of course, they’re a bit of a hard sell to help save because they’re not so cute and cuddly.

– WTF fun facts

Source: “Primates in jeopardy: the ‘demon’ primate” — CGTN

WTF Fun Fact 12800 – Monkeys and Bananas Don’t Mix

Color us shocked by this one. We had no idea that monkeys don’t actually eat bananas in the wild OR that bananas are actually really bad for monkeys!

Monkeys love bananas, but…

Monkeys love bananas the same way we love junk food. And when people first started to keep monkeys as pets, they would give the creatures choices of things that grew locally. It turns out, that monkeys often chose bananas simply because they’re tasty.

If someone asked you what you’d like to eat and put down your favorite snack next to a bunch of vegetables, you’d probably reach for the sugary snack. Our brains love sugar. Unfortunately, for all of us primates, sugar isn’t good for us. It can affect our teeth, interfere with our digestion, make us gain weight, and lead to diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.

The same goes for monkeys.

Bananas are for humans

We think of bananas as healthy because they have a lot of potassium and our bodies are a lot bigger than a monkey’s. When we eat a banana, we taste the sugar, but it’s not really enough for it to be considered “junk food.”

The way bananas are grown, they simply don’t have enough protein or fiber for them to be of much nutritional use to monkeys.

According to Dr. Amy Plowman at Paignton Zoo in Devon (who made news when she banned bananas for monkeys) said: “People usually try to improve their diet by eating more fruit – but fruit that’s cultivated (grown) for humans is much higher in sugar and much lower in protein and fiber than most wild fruit because we like our fruit to be so sweet and juicy…Compared to the food they would eat in the wild, bananas are much more energy-dense – they have lots of calories – and contain much more sugar that’s bad for their teeth and can lead to diabetes and similar conditions.”

Of course, weaning monkeys off bananas is just as hard as telling humans to stop eating sugar. Monkeys should be eating leafy greens instead. Of course, a captive monkey can be stripped of the choice of what to eat, so improving their diet is a lot easier than improving our own. – WTF fun facts

Source: “Monkeys banned from eating bananas because they’re unhealthy” — BBC UK

WTF Fun Fact 12591 – The Animal With the Poisonous Elbow

There is only one venomous primate in the world, and it’s not exactly a fierce-looking creature. The slow loris is the poison primate in question, and they’re native to Indonesia. Unfortunately, they’re also going extinct because they are thought to contain medicines and spiritual properties.

We don’t know about any of that, be we do know they pack a poisonous sac in their elbow.

It sounds like something out of a Marvel comic – a character that can deliver a striking blow with a sharp elbow to the face. But they don’t attack with their elbows.

Instead, they suck out the poison, swish it around in their mouths a little, and then deliver the venom through a bite.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t save them. They’re treated pretty brutally, and if someone plans to catch one, they typically remove its teeth. And the slow loris gets its name in part because it can’t outrun predators, especially humans.

Animals rescuers are trying to save them from their brutal fates, but studying them is hard because they’re nocturnal, secretive (and not super keen on humans who have a habit of dismembering and cooking them over fires). Go figure.

Lorises don’t typically attack other species with their poison bites – they’re far more likely to attack other lorises, which certainly doesn’t help those sustainability numbers.

While the loris is the only venomous primate, there are other venomous mammals: vampire bats, two species of shrew, platypuses, and solenodons.

But loris venom is truly gruesome causing necrosis causes necrosis (or tissue death), so victims can lose the limb affected.

This is just one more piece of proof that you can’t just blindly trust a cute face. – WTF fun facts

Source: “Slow loris: the eyes may be cute, but the elbows are absolutely lethal” — The Guardian