Non Human Primates


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

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

We share almost 99 percent of our genetic material with chimpanzees. Yet we have several traits that are very different. Two legged walking, or bipedalism seems to be one of the earliest of the major hominine characteristics to have evolved. To

The use of tools comes to practice everyday as chimpanzees collect food from the jungle. Goodall describes how chimpanzees in Tanzania’s Gombe National Park use straw and blades of grass poke holes to hunt for termites by “squatting beside the termite nest, pushing and withdrawing the long grass stem through a hole”. Moreover, during Gooddal’s research, she observed chimpanzees modifying tools, such as small leafy twigs, thus showing the beginnings of tool making. Chimpanzees in West Africa also use tools to get honey from underground bees’ nests. Recently, scientists found out that chimpanzees living in West Savannah use deadly spears from sticks and hand crafted tools to hunt for small animals.

Primates have some features that support them for the arboreal life. First, primates have developed grasping extremities with the divergent hallux and nails instead of claws. These features help them grasping branches better. Second, primates have enhanced vision with the optic convergence, which helps them look straightforward. They also have postorbital bar to protect the eyes. Third, primates reduced the olfaction that is not useful for arboreal life. Fourth, comparing to the other mammals, primates have large brain consider to the body size. The large brain helps them to process the complicating reactions, and thinking. Haplorrhines primates have some unique derived traits: the loss of tapetum lucidum, which enhances the vision in the darkness; and haplorhini, which is dry external nose. The anthropoid primates have developed some derived traits. They have postorbital bar with closure, and this makes a complete bony ring surrounds the eyes. They also have fused mandibular symphysis. The Platyrrhines have the dental formula 2.1.3.3/2.1.3.3. The Catarrhines have dental formula 2.1.2.3/2.1.2.3. The Cercopithecoids have the bilophodont molars to enhance the chewing ability. The hominoids are the most developed primates, which have some derived unique traits. They have larger brain, loss of tail, longer arms than legs, broad thorax with more muscles, and highly mobile shoulder.

Some of the primates are also used as service animals to assist quadriplegic human beings based on their memory, intelligence and manual dexterity. On the other hand, the primates need human beings to protect them and their habitat. It can therefore be concluded that the two species need the help of each other for survival. This research will focus on a primate that has been ignored for long, the bonobos. The assumption that these creatures are chimpanzees has limited the research needed to know more about them.

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

Both humans and other primates use tools, and in similar ways as well. Many use tools for gathering food or hunting. Though humans have a larger array of tools, for many more complex uses. No other primates use tools as much as humans do. Humans are very unique for

Primates first evolved from the trees of tropical forests, later to the ground. Through the times of prosimians 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 the transforming environments interacting with natural selection, primates developed their own ways to move better (meaning changes in locomotion) with different types of bodies (meaning changes in body configuration).

According to the data collected, the Intermembral index for each of the six primates observed from highest to lowest is: Gibbon (127), Howler monkey (102), Baboon (94), Macaque (89), Marmoset (74), Human (69). From this grouping, the Gibbon is the primate whose IM at 127 is the highest percentage, and this indicates that their upper limbs are significantly longer than their lower limbs. In contrast, the Human, with an IM of only 69 serves as the lowest percentage of the examples given, and this instead serves to demonstrate that their upper limbs are shorter than their lower limbs. This difference in limb length between the Gibbon and the Human is significant because it helps to show how species are adapted to best fit the environments

Most of the coordination of the primates especially the movement from place to place are aided by the sight. The primates can only have the sense of smell when the source of the smell is very close to them. Another important general characteristic of primates is the possession of the four limbs (Srivastava 2009). All the primates have four limbs but in some like the humans, the forelimbs are specialized to be hands. The forelimbs provide the strength of the primates. All the activities revolving around their daily activities including movement, work, jumping, eating, etc. are all aided by the use of the limbs that is the legs and the

A very close relative, Chimpanzees, have been known to make their own tools and improvise as well. Jane Goodall once said, “just as human cultures use different utensils for food, so do different groups of chimps”. She noticed that one group of chimps would go “termite fishing”, which means the chimps would use two sticks to capture termites to eat. Another group of chimpanzees would use a rock as a hammer, and an anvil, or a hard surface, to break open nut shells. When drinking water from holes in trees, she noticed that a group of chimpanzees would use chewed leaves to act like a sponge, and then simply suck the water out of the leaves once the water was collected.

The rarity of human uniqueness no longer exists in the thoughts of scientists believing that human ability skills lie within the construction and use of tools. As declared by Goodall in which chimpanzees used straight sticks after removing the leaves and branches to collect termites or ants for consumption. (Goodall, 1986) Other species both primate and non-primate demonstrate successful abilities., which include a sense of self as well as the theory of mind, by which other species recognize that other individuals contain different information than themselves. Different species also have the ability to communicate symbolically to one another through the sounds of vocalization. (Sapolsky R. M., 2006)

Ant-dipping is a method in which a long stick is used to capture ants that is practised by only certain groups of chimpanzees use ant-dipping whereas other do not (Humle et al. 2013). Furthermore, chimpanzees at a site called Gombe would remove the ants from a long stick using their hands whereas those at another site, Tai, would directly use their mouth to eat the ants captured on a small stick (Laland et al. 2013). The variations in the way these chimpanzees eat, the tools that they use, short as opposed to long sticks, and the absence of this tool use in certain species of chimpanzees can be argued strictly as culturally

Over time, orangutans have adapted their hands from having sharp claws to having flattened nails. This led to them having really sensitive finger pads. Because their fingers are so sensitive, they can control each finger separately and feel things easily. They use their fingers to build tools and to pick bugs out of each other’s