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What is a Primate? Anthropology 2200

What is primatology?

• The study of the behavior, ecology, anatomy, and evolution of non-human primates

Primatology and Anthropology?

• Why study primates in an anthropology class? • Cross-species perspective • Evolutionary implications • Evolutionary modeling • Insight into human behavior, morphology,

culture

For example….

• Morphology and behavior of extant primates can help us understand:

• Relationship between morphology and behavior • Use this to infer behavior in the fossil record • Better understand human evolution

• Bipedalism – Orangutan Brachiation

• Can also help us understand additional aspects of human behavior

• Elevator avoidance • Alcoholism • Stress

Taxonomy • Kingdom Animalia • Phylum Chordata • Class Mammalia • Order Primates

What unites the primates?

Tropical distribution

• Almost all non-human primates live in the tropics of South or Central America, Asia, or Africa

Order: Primates

• Four prominent evolutionary tendencies • Arboreal adaptation

• Behaviors • Anatomical Characteristics

• Dietary Plasticity • Eat a wide variety of foods

• Larger brains • More complex behaviors

• Parental investment • Fewer offspring • More time invested

Arboreal Adaptations

• A generalized body structure • Bones of shoulders, limbs,

hands, feet are separate • Clavicle

• Keeps upper limbs at sides of body

• Flexibility/highly mobile joints • Equal length of front and hind

limbs • Long tail

• prehensile in some primates

Arboreal Adaptations • Generalized skeletal structure  Hand

• Opposable thumb • Thumb  4 fingers • Grasping

• Precision grip • Fine manipulation

• Power grip • Fist-like grip around object

Arboreal Adaptations

• Generalized skeletal structure  Foot

• Many = opposable big toe (hallux)

• Grasping • Humans

• Terrestrial • Bipedal

Arboreal Adaptations

• Generalized skeletal structure  Vertebral column

• 4 types of vertebrae • Bending • Twisting • Humans

• Coccyx = Tail • S-Shape vs. C-

Shape

Arboreal Adaptations • Enhanced sense of touch

• Dermal ridges (finger/toe prints)

• Primitive = Strepsirhines

• Derived = higher primates = better grasp

• Nails • Protection • Gripping

Grasping hands and feet

Prehensile tails

Arboreal Adaptations

• Enhanced sense of vision • Stereoscopic vision

• Both eyes see at the same time

• Depth perception = locomotion

• Color vision = insects/prey/fruit

Arboreal Adaptations

• Post-orbital bar • Product of eyes

moving forward!

Arboreal Adaptations

• Forms of locomotion • Quadrupedalism

• Arboreal • Typical arboreal quadrupeds • Suspensory locomotors

• Terrestrial • Typical terrestrial quadrupeds • Knuckle walkers

• Bipedalism

Trend towards diurnality

Benefits of diurnality

Diurnal and arboreal

• Reduced sense of smell • Due to enhanced vision • Smaller and less projecting snouts • Most higher primates have lost:

• Rhinarium (external wet nose) • Long snout

• Primitive primates have rhinarium • Loris/Lemur

• Baboons have large snouts • Massive canine roots

Dietary Plasticity

• Primates eat a wide range of foods

• Omnivorous • Fruit, nuts,

seeds, leaves, insects, meat

• Some specializations • Frugivore

• Mainly fruit • Folivore

• Mainly leaves • Insectivore

• Mainly insects

Dietary Plasticity • Generalized Heterodont dentition = wide range of foods

• Primitive dental characteristics

• Four functionally distinctive tooth types

• Incisors • Canines • Premolars • Molars

• 3.1.4.3 • Ancestral dental formula

Primate Characteristics

Heterodont dentition