The Primates

1. The Primates

2. Baby chimp

3. The Primates • Linnaean Taxonomy • The idea that species shared similarities so struck Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus that he devised a taxonomic system to name and thus categorize all living creatures. • Cladistics • A Linnaean taxonomy can be translated into an evolutionary tree. • Cladistics works the opposite way by starting with the evolutionary tree and placing organisms in taxonomic categories based on their order of branching • regardless of how their present-day appearances and adaptations might assort them into groups.

4. The Primates • A survey of the Living Primates • Prosimians • The “pre-apes” represent the most primitive primates, that is, those that most closely resemble the earliest primates. There are 40 or so living species of prosimians. • Lemurs, Loris, Tarsiers

5. The Primates • Anthropoids • The anthropoid (“humanlike”) primates include monkeys, apes, and humans. • All the New World platyrrhine primates are monkeys. • The Old World catarrhine primates comprise monkeys, apes, and humans.

6. Ringtailed lemur

7. Red fronted lemur

8. Black lemur

9. orangatan

10. capuchin

12. Uakari monkey

13. gorillas

14. The Primates • What is a Primate? • Primates range from the very small, such as the mouse lemur of Madagascar, which weighs less than 3 ounces, to • the gigantic- Gigantopithecus, an extinct ape from China, Vietnam, and India that may have stood 12 feet tall and weighed over half a ton.

15. The Primates:Characteristics • The Senses • Vision is the primates’ predominant sense. Most primates see in color, and all primates see in three dimensions. • Movement • Unlike most mammals, primates have extremely flexible limbs, and their hands have the ability to grasp objects.

16. Reproduction • Mostly because of their large, complex brains and because of the importance of learning, young primates are dependent on adults and take a long time to mature. • Intelligence • Of all land mammals, the primates have the largest relative brain sizes. • Omnivores • Dirual • Most of the primates live during the day

17. Stereoscopic Vision • Three-dimensional vision: depth perception. • Prehensile • Having the ability to grasp. • Brachiation • Locomotion by swinging arm-over-arm. • Opposability • The ability to touch the thumb to the tips of the other fingers on the same hand.

18. Postnatal Dependency • The period after birth during which offspring require the care of adults to survive. • Intelligence • The relative ability of the brain to acquire, store, retrieve, and process information. • Grooming • Here, cleaning the fur of another animal, which promotes social cohesion. • Dominance Hierarchy • Individual differences among group members in terms of power, influence, and access to resources and mating.

19. The Primates • The Senses • Our senses are essentially the same as those of the anthropoid monkeys and the apes. • Movement • Bipedalism is the characteristic that in broad evolutionary perspective defines the hominids. • We are the only primate that is habitually bipedal, and we have been for over 4 million years.

20. The Primates • Summary • Taxonomy provides us with a way of naming and categorizing species so as to indicate their biological relationships. • The primates are one of nineteen order of mammals. • They may be characterized as being adapted to arboreal environments through manual dexterity, visual acuity, and intelligence. • Tool making.

21. definitions • Inclusive Fitness • The idea that fitness is measured by the success of one’s genes, whether possessed by the individual or by that individual’s relatives. • Altruistic • Benefiting others without regard for one’s own needs or safety. • Reproductive Strategies • Behaviors that evolve to maximize an individual’s reproductive success. • Ethology • The study of the natural behavior of animals under natural conditions.

22. Primate behavior and Human Evolution • Baboons • There are five distinguishable types of baboon that live in the African woodland, desert, and savanna, all grouped within genus Papio. • Baboon groups range in size from 20 to 200 individuals. One of the most striking aspects of baboon behavior is the aggressive competition for dominance among males.

23. Primate Behavior and Human Evolution • Chimpanzees • The bond between mother and infant is strong in chimps, as it is in most mammals. These apes, though, have large, complex brains, and infants have a lot to learn about their world before they can become functioning adults. Thus, the mother-infant bond is particularly long-lived and important.

24. Primate Behavior and Human Evolution • Bonobos • Bonobos are more peaceful and gregarious than chimps. There is a dominance hierarchy among males, but unlike the case with chimpanzees, the hierarchy is easily established with brief aggressive chases. Female hierarchies appear to be based on seniority.

25. Primate Behavior and Human Evolution • Summary • The importance of a well-defined social organization is seen among one savanna primate, the baboon, and is a good hint that an analogous behavior was a key to the survival of early savanna hominins. • The basic pattern for the behavior of chimps, bonobos, and humans are homologous. They are the same because we inherited them from a common ancestor.