Classification Of Primate Characteristics

Primates are one of the most interesting mammals on earth, not only because of their complex social structures, but because they hold so many similar characteristics to humans. Primates are often cited as our closest living relatives and on two separate occasions I observed four separate species of primates at the San Diego Zoo that can justify their use of their physical characteristics and behaviors that may be similar as well as different to the other primates and ours.


Humans and non-human primates have many behaviors and characteristics in common. Apes and chimpanzees have been studies and closely watched for many years. Scientist and researchers and found many similarities between the apes and chimpanzees with humans. All three are hard working and work with tools. They also make these tools. Another similarity is the fact that they are very social with others of their breed. This is also true about other primates other than apes and chimpanzees, like lemurs, lorises, pottos, and tarsiers. Apes and chimpanzees are able to learn sign language and elementary math skills. All primates have nails instead of claws on their fingers and toes. Both non-human primates and humans all have opposable thumbs. They use these thumbs to be able to pick up things better and they are thumbs that are able to move and touch other parts of the same hand. Non-human primates, including humans, learn by watching their mothers and other family members. For example, chimpanzees learn to make stick tools to stick into holes to get termites to eat. They do this because the mothers never teach them

In the article, “Of Primates and Personhood: Will According Rights and ´Dignity´ to Nonhuman Organisms Halt Research?¨, written by Ed Yong, who explains the moral but unclear delma of granting Great Apes rights. Extending from Spain to the U.S., the Great Ape Project (GAP) fights for these basic sets of moral and legal rights for apes. The problem is that apes, although genetically similar to humans are still viewed as simple animals. Which makes the ability to give these non-human animals, human like rights unnecessary as it would to give rights to dogs or rats. The U.S. has also passes the Great Ape Protection Act, which stop any harmful experience to apes. Consequently also stopping any further understanding of underlying biological mechanisms,

Within this essay, we will study more in depth the behavioral as well as physical traits of two primates at a zoo from their interaction with their peers to their place in the group. This observation would enable us to further understand the possible existing correlation between humans and primates. First, I studied a female chimpanzee with her baby, and then, a dominant male gorilla, in San Francisco Zoo at about noon, on May 23, 2015, for an hour each. Even though they share some similarities such as having a large brain, living for a long time, and being bored in their enclosure, they are still different; when gorillas are the largest, chimpanzees are the smartest. In fact, chimps use tools to catch food, they would not be able to reach

For this assignment, I have decided to design an enclosure about the primate, Mandrill. I will, in words, describe an enclosure that will prevent these nonhuman primates from not being suited to their natural habitat needs. Throughout this assignment, I will design my very own version of a perfect enclosure that secures these primates by critically thinking of any psychological or physical problems that can occur. What also will need to partake is considering the perspective of the nonhuman primates, the zookeepers, and the visitors as well. Designing an enclosure has to be precise and detailed. I will do the best I can to be as detailed as I can be when designing this enclosure.

The fundamental physical prerequisites of people , just like all organisms , are : water, for various metabolic process; foods, to provide energy, raw materials for developing entirely new living matter, as well as chemical substances required for vital reactions; oxygen, to discharge energy from foods materials; heat, to enhance chemical effects; and also pressure, to enable inhaling and exhaling” This like this article and think that it relates to . To be able to understand how humans evolved from early existence forms, we can quickly take a look at our closest relatives, the primates. Primates consist of us (Homo sapiens), the apes, the monkeys, as well as prosimians, for example, the lemur. We can easily be familiar with primate behavior

This paper aims to study the traits of non-human primates. By observing two types of primates including Common Squirrel Monkey (Saimiri sciureus) and Western Gorillas (Gorilla Gorillas), I try to find out their characteristics, pattern of their behavior, and differences between these two primate species. Especially, characteristics and behavior such as social interaction, food acquisition and intelligence will be discussed and compared in this paper. In order to enhance the persuasiveness of my observation, I recorded and examined at least 25 distinct characteristics of both Common Squirrel Monkeys and Western Gorillas. It is also helpful for me to compare these two primates. Apart from exploring the primates’ traits and differentiation between them, this paper will discuss the effects of captivity. How being in captivity and on display in a zoo would influence their behaviors and emotions? The observation was a great success and I have successfully derived with a hypothesis base on our observing data. The ultimate goal of this paper is arousing humans’ awareness of the importance of studying primates.

Primate intelligence correlates to primate cognition which is the study of the intellectual and behavioral skills of primates (Low). In the book Human Evolution and Culture, chapter five "Human Evolution Biological and Culture" states that primates share a lot of common features with mammals but what makes them uniquely different than many other mammals is that primates have a wide range of physical and social traits (86). The social relationships of primates are unique because just like humans, they relationship begin with the mother and other adults that the younger dependable primates. "The dependency of infant primates offers an evolutionary benefit that allows infant primates more time to examine and master the intricate behaviors necessary to survival while enjoying the care and protection of mature adults."(87) Primates have the privilege of having a large brain the size similar to body size to learn the culture and the way of life they live. Larger brains give primates the advantage to obtain an enormous amount of learning and integrate data. Primates have a special gift in areas of their brain that's dedicated to speech and language. (94) Primates have the special ability to communicate with each other as well as with humans and are the "only habitual toolmaking animal" (96). Although primates are more cognitively advanced than many other animals/mammals, researchers and critics still debate on how to define, compare and study intelligence and the growth of

They are very fast and can be able to run within short distances using the most minimal time. It takes less than 10 seconds to run within a distance of approximately 100 meters. While the animals move around they try to monitor the environment as quadrupedally and monitoring of the environment can be able to take as much as up to ten minutes in any case they have doubts of where they are, this alerts them of any predators. Consortship is a situation where the two animals would stay close to each other and monitor the movement and environment of each other. This is done as long as the animals are out in an environment that is not seen as being friendly. The patas can be seen to be less vocal and they move around in silence, they make certain noise only once when they have seen a predator. The noise or the sound takes just a few seconds as long as the danger is taken away

Non human primates’ social organization can provide useful information how human social evolution occurs. We will go over main points of how similar and different non human primates such as chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas’ society are compared to ours, humans.

Primates first evolved from the trees of tropical forests, later to the ground. Through the times of promisians to human, many characteristics has been represented due to the adaptations to new environments and resulted in evolutionary changes. The Earth has encountered several geological and climatic changes over time. For the primates existed at that time had to adjust itself especially in body configurations and locomotion in order to better survive. It is important to be aware of this information since we are the part of occurring changes as well. Throughout the evolution owing to

Primates have always been a fascination of author Robert Sapolsky who wrote an autobiography about a trip he took to Kenya as a research undergraduate student. Part 1 is named the adolescent years and talks about when Sapolsky first joined the baboon trip to Kenya. It introduces his research assignment, how stress affected a primates health, and the baboons he recorded his data from. Soloman was the alpha male and Leah was the alpha female. Devorah was the most eligible female in the group. Ruth, a lower-ranking baboon, who had difficulty finding a mate settled down with Joshua, another lower-ranking baboon. They soon had Obadiah. Uriah a large baboon who transferred into the group in the spring persisted a challenge against Soloman until he

Joseph Henrich began, A Puzzling Primate, by describing how physically inept human beings are when compared to the rest of the animal kingdom. He continues with this logic when he demonstrates, that humans in this era, would not be able to survive if placed in the wild forest environment. Due to the biological weakness of humans, culture became a necessary defense mechanism and a form of protection. Culture became a unique way for humans to adapt. Despite the obvious physical weakness of humans, through culture we have rose to be the dominant species.

During my research of Orangutans and Mandrills I observed them in captivity at the San Diego Zoo. My observations included a 20 minute observation of each primate as it cohabitated with other Primates and with other members of its own species. My findings will support the research of Orangutans and Mandrills through firsthand observations.

One of the main reasons why we are so interested in the other primates is that by looking at them we can obtain some ideas of what our ancestor must have been like a few millions years ago. Even though, we are not descended from any modern-type monkey or ape, our lineage does appear to have gone through stages in which we were a medium-sized, reasonably intelligent creature with good binocular vision, hands that were good at manipulation and the ability to climb trees. An evolutionary trend in primates involves the development of offspring both before and after birth and their integration into complex social systems. Another trend in primate evolution has been toward a more elaborate brain. In addition to brain size and gestation periods,