Best Monkey

Pierrette was a pig-tailed macaque used by France's space program for a biological research mission in 1967. She was launched aboard a Vesta rocket on a suborbital trajectory, reaching an altitude of approximately 234 kilometers above the Earth. The flight was designed to study the physiological imp...

Mike was a cynomolgus monkey who participated in a United States aerospace research flight in 1952. He was launched alongside another monkey named Patricia aboard an Aerobee rocket to study the effects of high-altitude flight. The mission was a short suborbital flight designed to test biomedical ins...

Uncle Fatty was the nickname given to an obese long-tailed macaque living near Bangkok, Thailand. The animal attracted international attention in 2017 after wildlife authorities captured him and placed him in a weight-reduction program, reportedly because visitors had been feeding him calorie-rich h...

Yerosha was a rhesus macaque used in the Soviet Union's Bion space-biomedical research program. Together with another macaque named Dryoma, he flew aboard Bion 8 from September 29 to October 12, 1987, while experiments examined how living organisms responded to orbital flight. The mission formed par...

Verny was a rhesus macaque carried aboard the Soviet biosatellite Bion 7, also designated Kosmos 1667. The spacecraft remained in orbit from July 10 to July 17, 1985, conducting biomedical research into the effects of spaceflight on living organisms. Verny was one of the primates used by the Bion pr...

Ivasha was a rhesus macaque used in the Bion 10 biological research mission, which orbited Earth from December 29, 1992, to January 7, 1993. The monkey flew with another rhesus macaque as part of experiments examining how spaceflight affected living organisms. The mission belonged to the long-runnin...

Pockets Warhol was a Canadian capuchin at Story Book Farm sanctuary whose paintings were exhibited from 2011 to raise funds for primate care.

Loon was a male drill kept at the San Diego Zoo. Born at the Philadelphia Zoo in 1979 and transferred to San Diego in 1982, he developed diabetes and was trained through operant conditioning to present his arm for regular blood sampling and insulin injections. Preserved tissue from Loon was later in...

No. 384-80 was one of the squirrel monkeys used in life-science experiments aboard Space Shuttle Challenger during the STS-51-B mission in 1985. It flew in Spacelab 3 with the other identified monkey, No. 3165, making the animal part of a numbered experimental cohort rather than a public-facing name...

No. 3165 was one of the squirrel monkeys used in life-science experiments aboard Space Shuttle Challenger during the STS-51-B mission in 1985. It flew in Spacelab 3 with the other identified monkey, No. 384-80, making the animal part of a numbered experimental cohort rather than a public-facing name...

Banana-Sam was a squirrel monkey kept at San Francisco Zoo. On 31 December 2011, the animal was stolen from the zoo and later found alive in a nearby park. The case is distinguished by the complete sequence of a zoo animal's theft and recovery, making it a documented incident in the history of the z...

Bonny was a pig-tailed macaque used in the United States Biosatellite 3 mission, which flew in 1969. The flight made Bonny part of early space-life-science research involving a primate and is described as the first multi-day monkey spaceflight. Bonny survived the flight long enough to be recovered b...

Natasha was a macaque kept at the Safari Park near Tel Aviv, Israel. In 2004 she attracted international media attention after recovering from a severe stomach illness and then walking upright on her hind legs rather than alternating between bipedal movement and all-fours locomotion. Contemporary re...

Albert IV was a rhesus macaque used in the United States’ late-1940s V-2 rocket experiments involving animals. He flew on the last monkey V-2 mission in 1949 and reached space on a suborbital flight, but died when the capsule struck the ground after a parachute malfunction. Albert IV is distinct fro...

Fargam was a male rhesus macaque used in an Iranian biological spaceflight experiment. He was launched on 14 December 2013 inside the Pishgam capsule, carried by an Iranian Kavoshgar rocket, on a suborbital flight. Iranian authorities reported that the capsule reached an altitude of about 120 kilome...

Multik was a Russian rhesus macaque that flew on Bion 11 in 1996 and 1997; he died under anesthesia during post-flight biopsy sampling.

Scatback was a rhesus macaque used by the United States in an early spaceflight experiment. He flew on a suborbital mission in December 1961 and survived the flight itself, but the recovery operation failed to locate him after the capsule landed at sea. His mission belongs to the period when America...

Maggie the Monkey, also called Maggie the Macaque, was a crab-eating macaque kept at Ontario's Bowmanville Zoo. Beginning in 2003, the Canadian sports broadcaster TSN used her in televised Stanley Cup playoff predictions, asking the animal to select between competing teams. Her role was a media feat...

Xing Xing is a one-armed Tibetan macaque in Zhejiang, China, known online for visits to Yanghu Temple and care from a local nun for over a decade.

Aftab was an Iranian rhesus macaque used in the country's 2013 primate spaceflight program, reported as safely returned after a suborbital launch.

Albert I was a rhesus macaque used by the United States in an early biological spaceflight experiment. He was launched aboard a V-2 rocket in 1948 and reached high altitude during the flight, but the mission did not return him safely. Albert I is remembered in accounts of the animals sent on early r...

Cuddles the Monkey is a British puppet character associated with the entertainer and ventriloquist Keith Harris. The character belongs to the variety and children's television tradition in which a ventriloquist presents recurring animal figures as comic companions. Cuddles is identified as a lively...

Punch-kun is a Japanese macaque born at Ichikawa City Zoo in 2025, known online for clinging to an IKEA orangutan plush after maternal rejection.

Missy is a golden lion tamarin at Newquay Zoo in Cornwall, recorded as the 13-year-old mother of a rare infant born there in March 2026.

Duoredo is a golden lion tamarin kept at Newquay Zoo in Cornwall, England. Golden lion tamarins are small, orange-gold primates native to Brazil's Atlantic Forest and are recognized by the mane-like fur around their faces. Duoredo was recorded as the 16-year-old father of a rare infant born at the z...

Twelves was a robust capuchin kept as a pet by the Brazilian singer known as Latino. Born on 12 December 2012, the monkey became known through online posts and public attention surrounding the singer's household. Twelves died in a traffic accident in 2018, making the animal notable as a documented c...

Big George was a squirrel monkey associated with Miss Baker, a squirrel monkey that survived a U.S. spaceflight. The two animals were paired in a 1962 ceremony at the Naval Aerospace Medical Center in Florida. Big George is distinguished in historical records by this association with an animal conne...

Norman was a monkey from the Yerkes National Primate Research Center who became Miss Baker's second mate in a 1979 ceremony in Alabama.

Albert V was a rhesus monkey associated with the United States' early biological spaceflight experiments. He was launched aboard an Aerobee rocket in 1951, during a period when animals were used to study the effects of rocket flight and high-altitude conditions before human spaceflight. The mission...

Ramu was a rhesus macaque in India whose reported confinement became connected with a legal and social dispute. Accounts described the monkey as being kept behind bars for years after attacks on children, with the incidents contributing to communal unrest in Jagannathpur. The case is associated with...