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Studying the Tonkean macaques of Strasbourg, a tale full of sound and fury

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Abstract

In this paper, I chronicle the Strasbourg population of Tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana) over a period of half a century. In 1972, Tonkean macaques were imported from Sulawesi, Indonesia, to eastern France, leading to the establishment of two social groups in the Strasbourg region several years later. Our research team studied the social behavior and cognitive abilities of these Tonkean macaques for four decades. The species is characterized by a high degree of social tolerance. This has proven to be very informative in comparative studies of macaque social behavior, opening a new perspective on the evolution of primate societies. Over the years, the population has grown, and more social groups have been formed. However, the fact that some of the Tonkean macaques were healthy carriers of the herpes B virus led to disagreements over their management and eventually to the elimination of the positive individuals. Many individuals from the Strasbourg population are now kept in sanctuaries, and the number of captive breeding groups is limited. We still have much to learn about Tonkean macaques and there is a need for studies carried out in their native habitat in Sulawesi.

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Data availability

Not applicable: the data is provided in Table 1 itself.

Notes

  1. The descendants of the Tonkean macaques that arrived at the Thoiry Zoo Safari park in the early 1970s still form a large group at this site (Pallante et al. 2018). It is suspected that some degree of hybridization with other macaque species once occurred in this population. However, the morphology of these individuals appears to be typical of Tonkean macaques. Genetic testing would be welcome to clarify this issue.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to many colleagues and friends. Odile Petit, Valérie Dufour, Pierre Uhlrich, and Arianna De Marco have shared all the events in the life of the Tonkean macaques with me over the decades. Fabienne Aujard, Christophe Chauvin, Christine Demaria, Christine Desportes, Maud Drapier, Ana Maria Ducoing, Marie Pelé, Nancy Rebout, and Sophie Steelandt worked with them for years during their doctoral studies. Marina Butovskaya, Yasuyuki Muroyama, Signe Preuschoft, and Christine Reinhart spent a great deal of time following them during their research stays. Lucien Gangloff, Claude Rink, Nadia Messmer, and José Mary facilitated our studies at the Orangerie Park. Roberto Cozzolino, Laura Toti, Antonio De Marco, and Andrea Sanna provided invaluable help in hosting and caring for the Tonkean macaques at the Abatino Park. So many colleagues supported us during the 2008 crisis that I cannot name them all, but I must mention Elisabetta Visalberghi, Filippo Aureli, Hannah Buchanan-Smith, Frans de Waal, Dorothy Fragaszy, Tatyana Humle, Peter Kappeler, Tetsuro Matsuzawa, William McGrew, Susan Perry, Carel van Schaik, Augusto Vitale, Richard Wrangham and Juichi Yamagiwa. In the early days of my research, Jim Anderson helped me to enter the international primatology community. In this latest period of my research, he has invited me to write this chronicle, allowing me to pay tribute to these magnificent beings who have illuminated my life. My last word will be for Nicolas Herrenschmidt, who died on June 10, 2022. We worked hand in hand on the development of the Primatology Center in the 1980s, doing masonry and painting, clearing the undergrowth and repairing fences, feeding and caring for the animals, and also spending evenings at his home. Then we had growing disagreements about the purposes of the center. The slaughter of the Tonkean macaques caused a permanent rift between us. After his retirement, however, we met several times and talked as if we were still in the early years of the Primatology Unit.

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    Bernard Thierry

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Thierry, B. Studying the Tonkean macaques of Strasbourg, a tale full of sound and fury. Primates 64, 559–572 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-023-01088-3

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