As different authors applied the term to different species it is difficult to know which species, genus or family was meant. Macaca was given as a name to a widespread genus of Old World monkeys (the macaques) in 1799. Jaco was the specific name for a lemur and the term "Macauco" was also in general use to mean lemur, but there is no suggestion that Jacco was a lemur — Lennox specifically discounts this, and credits Jacco's forename as deriving from the "Jolly Jack Tars" that transported him to England and first observed his fighting abilities. Jacco's fame may have been associated with the rise of a Cockney slang word for a monkey "Murkauker" in the middle of the 19th century (although this was already obsolete by the 1890s), and "Jacco Macacco" itself was at least sometimes used as a generalised term for a monkey at the same period. Aistrop claimed that the sailor that had originally owned him had taken him from the "Isle of Maccacco". See also List of individual monkeys References Notes Citations Sources Books Newspapers Journals and magazines Baiting (blood sport) Individual monkeys Individual animals in England 1820s in London