ABSTRACT
Obesity has been recognized in nonhuman primates at least as far back as 1830 when an engraving of Jocko was made by A. Bell (Histoire Naturelle, Paris, G.L.L.de Buffon) (Figure 13.1a). In fact, in many orders of mammals beyond mice and rats (Order Rodentia), obesity has been shown to be common, including the Carnivora (e.g., dogs, cats, and bears), the Artiodactyla (pigs, cattle, and deer), and the more exotic orders such as those including whales, dolphins, rhinos, elephants, manatees, and the order Primates. This order includes two suborders, the prosimians (such as lemurs) and simians, also known as Anthropoidea, which includes, for example, monkeys, apes, and humans, a total of ~200 primate species. Within the Primate order, nearly all members of the suborder Anthropoidea have been shown
to develop age-associated obesity. Specically, obesity has been described in all three superfamilies: Ceboidea (New World monkeys, including marmosets, and squirrel monkeys), Cercopithecoidea (Old World monkeys, including 135 species such as baboons and macaques), and Hominoidea (the Hominidae including humans, orangutans, chimpanzees, and gorillas-with specimens of this last superfamily sometimes found to weigh >180 kg [>400 lb] and manifesting signicant abdominal obesity per an engraving of a gorilla in A.V.C.D. d’Orbigny’s Dictionnaire Universel d’Histoire Naturelle, 1839-1849, Paris, illustrator Travies, engraver, V. Fournier) (Figure 13.1b).
