preview

Bearded Capuchin Body Structure

Decent Essays

Phylum Chordata: Sapajus apella body structure, covering Bearded capuchins have forward facing eyes meaning they obtain binocular vision. These primates as other anthropoids and huans have stronger bones above the eye socket which creates less strain for chewing foods, allowing more time for the carbohydrate digestive enzymes to continue break down foods. The skull of the capuchin is large and domed to protect the brain. The capuchins’ four limbs contain 5 digits for each, i.e. fingers and toes. they have opposable thumbs and short fingernails as they are foragers and have developed bipedalism, moving with a bent hip and knee posture. Tufted or bearded Capuchins generally have fine hair with the keratin protein, close in colouration to their …show more content…

A dense network of capillaries lies below the skin, easing the process of gas exchange between the environment and the circulatory system. The Alveoli responsible for allowing gas exchange, is folded providing a greater surface area for exchange in gas to occur. The walls are also only one cell thick making the exchange surface thin, shortening diffusion distance. Heart Structure: The Capuchin heart is a four chambered, muscular organ consisting of 2 atria and 2 ventricles; the atria receive blood, while ventricles pump blood. The heart itself is composed of three layers being the epicardium (outer layer), the myocardium (middle layer), and the endocardium (inner layer). ectothermic/ …show more content…

Another likely possibility is that a single rafting event resulted in a transoceanic colonization due to continental drift. Bearded capuchins are classified as robust capuchins one of the 2 classifications. The other being gracile which are monkeys with long limbs in relative size to their torso. It is theorized that the formation of the Amazon River led to the separation between robust and gracile capuchins. The advantage that the robust monkeys have over the gracile monkeys is that in adapting robust forms due to environmental changes, their physiological structure has allowed them to be able to exploit the hard nuts of unripe palm fruit and unripe fruits. Robust capuchins, particularly wild bearded capuchins are noted for their ability to adapt to less nutrient rich, diversely vegetated areas by adopting bipedalism. This was necessary in developing tool use by using hard, rigid stones to crack open palm nuts. The evolution of bipedal locomotion in bearded capuchins meant an increase in metabolic functions as muscle became leaner and indistinct and an increased blood supply to the lower limbs. The evolutionary advantage to bipedalism was largely the ability to carry larger loads, and larger stones, as the organisms did not have to exert as much energy as the species’ evolved

Get Access