Famous Monkeys Through History
Real Life
Ape-O-Nauts
Gordo Squirrel Monkey US Army Ape-O-Naut. First Ape in space. Flew Jupiter AM-13 mission 12/13/58. Brutally murdered by humans who designed nose cone to sink in ocean AFTER flying successfully in space
Able Rhesus Monkey US Army Ape-O-Naut. Flew Jupiter AM-18 mission 5/28/59 with Baker. Able died on 1 June 1959 from the effects of anesthesia given to allow the removal of electrodes implanted for the historic space flight. Here's a windows's media or realplayer movie of their recovery from the capsule.
Baker Squirrel Monkey US Army Ape-O-Naut. Flew Jupiter AM-18 mission 5/28/59 with Able. Baker's stuffed corpse (unfortunately, i believe shown here) was displayed at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center (USSRC) in Huntsville, Alabama after she died in 1984. How was she able to keep her secrets so long?
Sam Rhesus Monkey NASA Ape-O-Naut. Flew Little Joe I-B and Little Joe II missions 12/4/59 and 10/23/63
Ham Chimp NASA Ape-O-Naut. Flew Mercury-Redstone 2 mission 1/31/61
Enos Chimp NASA Ape-O-Naut. Flew Mercury-Atlas 5 mission 12/21/61
Albert 6 Rhesus monkeys Before the fully successful flight of Able and Baker, 6 Rhesus monkeys, all named Albert, perished on unsucessful attempts
Enos Chimp NASA Ape-O-Naut. Flew Mercury-Atlas 5 mission 12/21/61
Other
Flo Chimp Jane Goodall's friend
Koko Gorilla Highly educated, speaking, computer using, photographer. Ambassador to the humans. Known to frequent online chat rooms. "Koko is aware".

Binti-Jua Gorilla Rescued boy fallen into gorilla exhibit at Chicago zoo. Niece of Koko. Name means "daughter of sunshine" in swahili
Robo-monkey Robotic Gibbon First robotic primate. Developed by Dr Toshio Fukuda at Nagoya University, Japan. The robot will swing like a gibbon from branch to branch - or rung to rung on a horizontal ladder set up in the laboratory. The research team chose to study swinging, or brachiation, because it has a set of unique problems that need to be solved. Robo-monkey has 14 motors controlling a fully-articulated body and a computer brain to direct all its movements.
ANDi Rhesus Macaque (clone) and a little bit jellyfish Just as in the quest for space, monkeys beat humans again in the race to have the first clone born with artificial gene inserted (in ANDi's case, Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) from jellyfish). Welcome to existence ANDi.
Tetra Rhesus Macaque (clone) Just as in the quest for space, monkeys beat humans again in the race to have the first clone born! Welcome to existence Tetra.
Willie B Gorilla Willie B., a silverback gorilla, was named for former Atlanta Mayor William B- Hartsfield. He was captured in Africa and spent more than two decades in a concrete-and-steel-bars cage at the former Atlanta-Fulton County Zoo. Besides a caretaker, his only companion was a television set on a shelf in the corner of the cage.
Hiriko Japanese Macaque Cameron Diaz is living with a rare Japanese Macaque and she couldn't be happier. "I was in Japan, in the mountain region, when I met Hiriko. He offered me a beetlenut and the rest is history." We asked her if she was aware of the stigma that interspecies relationships can have. "Oh I know, people are so small minded. If they really knew Hiriko they would love him as much as I do. I mean, if you had someone pick small foreign objects out of your hair as a sign of affection, you would fall head over heels as well." She was literally cooing in the interview and smiling the whole time. At the end of the interview though she left us with this serious thought. "I don't think people are saying 'Hey what is Cameron Diaz doing with a Snow Monkey'. I think they are saying 'Hey what is Cameron doing with a JAPANESE Snow Monkey'. It is such a sad thing that people can not accept the racial thing. Afterall we share 99% of the same genetic code and that has always been good enough for me."
Snowflake gorilla Albino working at freak show known as a "zoo"
Crap Rhesus Monkey Royal College of Surgeons lab monkey. Name tattoed on her forehead. First non-human punk rocker.
Matata Bonobo Chimp Mother of Kanzi. The human, Savage-Rumbaugh ran into difficulties during the language training sessions with Matata, a bonobo female. Living up to her Kiswahili name (which translates as "problem"), Matata failed to master the system of lexigrams. These sessions produced a highly fortuitous result, however; they exposed Matata's young, adopted son, Kanzi, to the artificial language.

note: Bonobos use sex in a variety of contexts, including food sharing.

Kanzi Bonobo Chimp Kanzi proved able to comprehend and spontaneously produce a limited number of lexigrams without training. This startling turn of events led to a shift in effort--a move away from rigorous training sessions and toward a more laissez-faire approach in which Kanzi was treated as a developing human infant, acquiring what he wanted to learn, when he wanted to learn it. This "training" regime proved strikingly successful. After four months Kanzi had acquired 20 symbols; in 17 months he used 50 symbols. Kanzi also could produce combinations of words spontaneously. Building on this latter finding, Savage-Rumbaugh and Patricia Greenfield of the University of California at Los Angeles investigated whether Kanzi had achieved the linguist's holy grail, syntax. Detailed examination of Kanzi's utterances has brought Savage-Rumbaugh to the exciting conclusion that the bonobo does possess a rudimentary syntactical ability; Kanzi appears to be sensitive to word order and other syntactical cues.

note: I saw Kanzi following requests on T.V. and let me tell you, that chimp can talk!!! Kanzi is much better at responding to vocal commands like "Take off Sue's shoe." In one particularly arresting feat, recorded on videotape, Kanzi was told, "Give the dog a shot." The chimpanzee picked up a hypodermic syringe lying on the ground in front of him, pulled off the cap and injected a toy stuffed dog.

note2: Kanzi has discovered how to manufacture stone tools.

note3: What Chomsky thinks:
Question: Prof. Chomsky: To go back to your linguistic background, what do you think of recent research by the Rumbaugh's concerning language in bonobo chimpanzee's like Kanzi and Matata.

Noam Chomsky: They have done interesting work on certain rudimentery works of all primates. But it has about as much to do with humans as my being concerned with the fact I can walk or why an eagle flies. But in itself it does have certain interest.

Washoe Chimp trained in American Sign Language and showed the ability to make combinations of certain signs she learned in ways she had never seen before. For example she combined the sign for "give me" with "tickle" to indicated she wanted to be tickled. Also, when encountering a monkey she disliked she signed "dirty" with "monkey" to express her disapproval of the other primate.
Nim Chimpsky Chimp Nim Chimpsky, named after the great linguist Noam Chomsky, was the first chimpanzee to learn American sign language. Nim became famous, and was the subject of numerous books and television specials. But when the researchers had no more use for him, they opted to sell him to a hepatitis research lab, where he would have been the subject of painful experiments and eventually killed. Nim enjoys looking at magazines, watching television, and putting on hats and shoes.
Sally Jones Chimp Sally Jones, approximately 47, longtime resident of The Fund for Animals' Black Beauty Ranch in Texas, passed away at 4:00 PM, March 21, 1997. As an infant chimpanzee, Sally was captured in Africa around 1950. Like many wild-caught chimps of this era, she was shipped to the United States, and spent the next twenty years working in the circus. She walked upright, permormed ballet, and was an accomplished bicycle rider, even though she still had buckshot in her abdomen from her capture. This injury kept her from reproducing. In 1970, she was acquired by the Institute for Primate Studies in Norman, Oklahoma. She spent the next thirteen years in Oklahoma, living in a large chimpanzee group which was involved in behavioral and cognitive research at the University of Oklahoma. In 1982, following the sale of the Oklahoma chimp colony to medical research, she came to live at Black Beauty Ranch, and became the companion to Nim Chimpsky, who had also been at the Institute. The vast majority of Sally's companions at the Institute ended up at the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates, affiliated with New York University. In 1993, Sally suffered from a stroke, from which she fully recovered. Around this time she was diagnosed with diabetes, which had been successfully managed over the last few years. Sally was one of the oldest living chimpanzees in the United States. Sally is survived by her companion of fifteen years, Nim Chimpsky, and by Ranch Manager Chris Byrne and the staff of Black Beauty Ranch and countless friends, all of whom were touched by her sweet disposition and amiable character. She will be fondly missed by all of them.
Zakhar Orangutan baby orangutan who lost his parents. Resides in Moscow's zoo, who can ill afford to keep him.
Bubbles Chimp Michael Jackson's "friend" (power to the primates!!!)

Oliver Chimp Unusual in that he walks in a bipedal gait and enjoys the company of people--or did when he was younger. He was originally brought into the U.S. with 12 other chimpanzees but immediately stood out as different. He learned to drink, enjoy coffee and beer, and smoke cigars. In the evenings he would sit on a sofa and watch television. If his caregivers were out of coffee, he would walk into the kitchen, pour a cup, and take it into the den. As he got older, he made sexual advances on the wife and as a result was sold. Now living in retirement in Texas.