Rhesus macaque baby. The baby was later found dead in a well. Though monkeys are known to attack people, enter homes or damage property, this reported behaviour was unusual. The rhesus macaque is well known to science. Due to its relatively easy upkeep in captivity, wide availability, and closeness to humans anatomically and physiologically, it has been used extensively in medical and biological research on human and animal health-related topics. It has given its name to the Rh factor, one of the elements of a person's blood group, by the discoverers of the factor, Karl Landsteiner and Alexander Wiener. The rhesus macaque
Rhesus macaque Jean-Baptiste Audebert, who applied the name to the species, stated: "it has no meaning". According to Zimmermann’s first description of 1780, the rhesus macaque is distributed in eastern Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, as far east as the Brahmaputra Valley in peninsular India, Nepal, and northern Pakistan. Today, this is known as the Indian rhesus macaque "M. m. mulatta", which includes the morphologically similar "M. rhesus villosus", described by True in 1894, from Kashmir, and "M. m. mcmahoni", described by Pocock in 1932 from Kootai, Pakistan. Several Chinese subspecies of rhesus macaques were described between 1867 and 1917. The molecular differences identified