Biology of Reproduction, Vol 15, 356-360, Copyright © 1976 by Society for the Study of Reproduction

Age, Weight and Weight Gain in the Individual Pubertal Female Rhesus Monkey (Macaca mulatta)

¹ Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, McGill University and Royal Victoria Hospital, Women’s Pavilion, 687 Pine Avenue West, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 1A1, Canada

The relationship between age, body weight and weight gain at puberty (first perineal turgescence and menarche) in the normal untreated rhesus monkey was determined from a longitudinal growth study of seven individual rhesus, 30 individual rhesus previously studied by other investigators and a review of 50 years of reported similar observations on captive rhesus at puberty. There was evidence of a secular trend towards an earlier age of puberty in the rhesus. Puberty was found to be generally coincident with the onset of the adolescent weight spurt and is invariably present before the maximum rate of pubertal weight gain. Although the average weight at puberty in the present study was consistent with prior studies, average pubertal age varied, suggesting a constant critical "demographic weight" at varying ages of puberty. Nevertheless, examination of 37 individual sexually mature rhesus from three separate studies showed age and weight at puberty were positively correlated. These data suggest that positive correlation in the pubertal age-weight distributions found in rodents and domestic animals may also occur in higher primates. A major species difference distinguishing the human from a general mammalian pubertal age-weight pattern, found in the rhesus, raises theoretical questions regarding the role "critical body weight" plays in triggering puberty.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We are grateful for the kind help offered to us by the New England Regional Primate Research Center, Southborough, Massachusetts, to Dr. Rose E. Frisch for assistance, to Barry Sherman and Jenny Pockel for their technical assistance, to Dr. Edington Lee and Mr. John Wyse for assistance in statistical analysis. We are grateful to Drs. Robert W. Goy and John A. Resko of the Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center, Madison, Wisconsin and the Oregon Regional Primate Center, Beaverton, Oregon, respectively, for providing us with age and weight data at rhesus menarche. The study was supported by a Primate Center Grant (RR-00163). We are grateful to Dr. James A. Gavan, Department of Anthropology, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri for providing us with age and weight data at the first appearance of perineal turgescence in the female rhesus. The study was supported in part by a Biomedical Science Grant (FR-7053) and in part by a U. S. Public Health Service Grant (RR-100285).