• The primate order has two suborders:
• Prosimians: (from the Latin for “before monkeys”) because
they possess traits common to the ancient primates.
• Anthropoids: Monkeys, apes, and humans are grouped together
as anthropoids (from the Greek for “humanlike”).
• The early history of the
primates is limited to
Prosimian-like animals
known through the fossil
records.
• The first anthropoids,
ancestral to monkeys, apes,
and humans, appeared
about 50 million years ago.
• Some prosimians
managed to survive in
Africa and Asia
because they were
adapted to nocturnal
life. As such they were
not competing with
anthropoids, which
are active during the
day.
• Lemurs in Madagascar
had no anthropoid
competition until
people arrived on that
island about 2,000
years ago.
• In their behavior and
biology, Madagascar’s
Lemurs, which include
some50 species, show
adoptions to an array of
environments, or
ecological niches.
• Their diets and times
activity differ.
• Lemurs eat fruits, other
plant foods, eggs, and
insects.
• Some are nocturnal;
others are active during
the day.
• Some are totally
arboreal; others spend
some time in the trees
and some on the
ground.
• Another kind of Prosimians
is the tarsier, today confined
to Indonesia, Malaysia, and
the Philippines.
• From the fossil record, we
know that after 55 million
years ago, several genera of
tarsierlike prosimians lived
in Asia, North America, and
Europe, which were much
warmer then than they are
now.
• The one genus of tarsier that
survived is totally nocturnal.
• Lorises are other nocturnal prosimians found in Africa
and Asia.
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Arboreal or tree living
Grasping hands and feet
Long, mobile limbs
Quadrapedal
Binocular vision
Upright sitting position
Nails instead of claws
Use scent marking to communicate –
wet nose
• All anthropoids share resemblance that can be
considered trends in primate evolution in the sense that
these traits are fully developed neither in the fossils of
primates that lived prior to 50 million years ago nor
among contemporary prosimians.
• The anthropoid suborder has two
infraorders:
• Platyrrhines (New World Primates).
• Catarrhines (Old World monkeys, apes,
and humans).
• Old World monkeys, apes, and
humans are all catarrh.
• Being placed in the same taxon
(infraorder, in this case) means
that Old World monkeys, apes,
and humans are more closely
related to each other than to New
World monkeys.
• In other world, one kind of monkeys
(Old World) is more like a human than
it is like another kind of monkey (New
World).
• The New World monkeys were reproductively isolated
from the catarrhines before the latter diverged into the
Old World monkeys, apes, and humans. This is why New
World monkeys are assigned to a different infraorder.
• All New World monkeys, and
many Old World monkeys are
arboreal.
• Whether in the trees or on the
ground, monkeys move
differently than apes and
humans.
• Their arms and legs move parallel
to one another, as dogs’ legs do.
• Unlike apes, which have longer
arms than legs, and humans, who
have longer legs than arms,
monkeys have arms and legs of
about the same length.
• Most monkeys have tails,
which help them maintain
balance in the trees.
• Apes and humans lack
tails. The apes’ tendency
toward orthograde posture
is most evident when they
sit down.
• When they move about,
chimps, gorillas, and
orangutans habitually use
all four limbs.
• New World monkeys live
in the forests of Central
and South America.
• Unlike Old World
monkeys, many new
world monkeys have
prehensile, or grasping,
tails.
• Sometimes the prehensile
tails has tactile skin,
which permits it to work
like a hand.
• The Old World
monkeys have both
terrestrial and
arboreal species.
• Baboons and many
macaques are
terrestrial monkeys.
• Certain traits differentiate
terrestrial and arboreal
primates.
• Arboreal primates tend to be
smaller.
• Smaller animals can reach a greater
variety of foods in shrubs and trees,
where the most abundant foods are
located at the ends of branches.
• Arboreal monkeys typically are lithe
and agile. They escape from the few
predators in their environment.
• Large size, by contrast, is
advantageous for terrestrial primates
in dealing with their predators,
which are more numerous on the
ground.
• Another contrast between arboreal and terrestrial
primates is in sexual dimorphism- marked differences
in male and female anatomy and temperament.
• Sexual dimorphism tends to be more marked in terrestrial than
in arboreal species.
• Baboon and macaque males are larger and fiercer than are
females of the same species. However, it’s hard to tell the sex
of an arboreal monkey.
• Of the terrestrial monkeys,
the baboons of Africa and
the (mainly Asiatic)
macaques have been the
subjects of many studies.
• Terrestrial monkeys have
specializations in anatomy,
psychology, and social
behavior that enable them
to cope with terrestrial life.
• Adult male baboons, for
example, are fierce looking
animals that can weight
100 pounds. They display
their long, projecting
canines to intimidate
predators and when
confronting other baboons.
Facing with a predator, a
male baboon can puff up
his ample mane of shoulder
hair, so that the would-be
aggressor perceives the
baboon as larger than he
actually is.
• Old World monkeys, however, have developed their own
characteristic anatomical specializations.
• They have rough patches of skin on the buttocks, adapted to
sitting on hard, rocky ground and rough branches.
• The Old World monkeys
have their own separate
superfamily
(Cercopithecoidea), while
humans and the apes
together compose the
hominoid superfamily
(Hominoidea).
• Among the hominoids, the
so-called great apes are
orangutans, gorillas, and
chimpanzees. Humans could
be including here too.
• The lesser (smaller) apes are
the gibbons and siamangs of
Southeast Asian and
Indonesia.
• Several traits are shared by apes (and humans) as distinct
from monkeys and other primates.
• Body size tend to be larger.
• The life span is longer.
• There is a longer interval between births of infants, which
depend longer on their parents.
• There is a tendency toward upright posture, although habitual
upright posture, although habitual upright bipedalism is
characteristic only of hominine.
• The brain is larger, the muzzle
or face is shorter and less
projecting, and no hominoid
has a tail.
• Apes live in forests and woodlands, and almost all apes
are threatened or endangered today because of human
encroachment.
• The light and agile gibbons, which are skilled brachiators,
are completely arboreal.
• Brachiators is hand-over-hand movement through the trees.)
• The heavier gorillas, chimpanzees, and adult male
orangutan spend considerable time on the ground.
• Gibbons are found in the
forests of Southeast Asia,
especially in Malaysia.
• Smaller than apes, male
and female gibbons have
about the same average
height (3 feet).
• Gibbons spend most of
their time just below the
forest canopy (treetop).
• For efficient brachiation,
gibbons have long arms
and fingers, with short
thumps.
• Slender built, gibbons are the
most agile apes.
• They use their long arms for
balance when they occasionally
walk erect on the ground or
along a branch.
• Diet mainly of fruits, with
occasional insects and small
animals.
• Gibbons and siamange, their
slightly larger relatives, tend to
live in primary groups, which
are composed of a permanently
bonded male and female and
their preadolescent offspring.
• There are two existing
species of orangutan, Asiatic
apes that belong to the
genus Pongo. Highly
endangered, contemporary
orangs are confined to two
Indonesian islands.
• Orangutans once were found
throughout Southeast Asia,
but today 90% of them live
in Indonesia.
• The degree of sexual
dimorphism in Orangutans
is striking.
• Adult males weight more
than twice as much as
females.
• Orangutans are arboreal,
although they climb,
rather than swing from
trees.
• Orangutans have a varied
diet of fruit, bark, leaves
and insets.
• 80% of the Orangutans
habitat has been either
depopulated or totally
destroyed.
• With just one species, there
are three subspecies of
gorillas.
• The smallest subspecies of
gorilla, lives mainly in
forests in the Central African
Republic, Congo, Cameroon,
Gabon, Nigerian and
Guinea.
• There are only 650
mountain gorillas left.
• These are the larges gorillas,
with the longest hair (to
keep them warm in their
mountainous habitat.)
• Full-grown male gorillas may
weight 400 pounds, and stand
6 feet tall.
• The average female weights half
as much.
• Gorillas spend little time in the
trees.
• When gorillas sleep in trees,
they build nests, which usually
are no more than 10 feet off the
ground. By contrast, the nests
of chimps and female
orangutan may be 100 feet
above ground.
• Most of the gorilla’s day is
spent feeding.
• Like most primates, gorillas
live in social groups. The
troop is a common unit of
primate social organization,
consisting of multiple males
and females and their
offspring.
• Although troops with up to 30
gorillas have been observed, most
gorillas live in groups of 10 to 20.
• Gorilla troops tend to have fairly
stable memberships, with little
shifting between troops.
• Each troop has a silverback male.
The silverback is usually the only
breeding male in the troop
Members of a
mountain
gorilla troop
sit with
primatologist
Dian Fossey.
Photo Credit: Peter Veit/DRK
• Chimpanzees have two
species: Pan troglodytes
(the common
chimpanzee) and Pan
paniscus.
• Like humans, chimps are
closely related to the
gorilla, although there are
some obvious differences.
• Chimps live in tropical
Africa, but they range over
a larger area and more
varied environments than
gorillas.
• Chimps prefer fruits, but
they are omnivorous,
adding animal protein to
their diet by capturing
small mammals, birds’
eggs, and insects.
• Chimps weight between
100 and 200 pounds.
• There is much less sexual
dimorphism among
chimps. Females
approximate 88% of the
average male height.
• The long-term research
of Jane Goodall provides
provide especially useful
information about
Chimpanzees.
• Goodall has described
communities of about 50
chimps, all of which
know one another and
interact from time to
time.
• Communities regularly split up into smaller groups.
• When chimps, which are very vocal, meet, they greet one
another with gestures, facial expressions, and calls.
• Males occasionally cooperate in hunting parties.