Order Primates

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.

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,

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.

Species: P. tigris, the organism who lives in a forest and is covered wiht blackstrip fur.

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

I have really enjoyed learning in this class and glad I took it because I found it to be very interesting. From learning all these different types of primates, from non-human to human primates, to even developing a better understanding of the evolution of primates and primate behavior. For my final paper, I will be going over and portraying the behavior of non-human primate and human primate. I will be comparing the primates behavior seen over the movies and literatures that we were assigned, to the understandings of evolution. Being able to learn and compare the behavior of non-human primate and the behavior of human primate, it can help further one understandings of how we are similar in physical and biological structures. According to the Wikipedia, “The primate lineage is thought to go back at least 65 million years ago”. (Wikipedia) With this one could say that the evolution of primates have been evolving for quite a while now, and even if we do not look like a non human primate we are similar than we think. The reading materials and the movies we had to watch for this class displayed the behaviors of non-human primate and human primate, some how differed. There are many question about evolution, and to how we were created? are there other reasons deeper than evolution? How much can we learn about evolution by just comparing the different behavior of the primates?

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 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.

The study of primates has been a common field of study for a long time. The studies are carried out for different reasons but the common reason is trying to understand human beings better. Studies have revealed that the behavior of primates is similar to that of human beings on different aspects. Human beings and primates have a history of being related based on the evolution stories. The earliest human beings are believed to have been apes and evolved from there.

For many animals, the ability to move is essential for survival. Animals move for a variety of reasons such as: to find food, a mate, a habitat to live in, or to escape predators. It is important for animals to develop new abilities and traits to accomplish these necessities of living. Natural selection has shaped the locomotion methods and mechanisms used by moving organisms for millions of years. Generally, non-human primates are studied to garner an understanding of evolution caused by natural selection because of the many distinctive adaptations that have occurred within their taxonomic order. To understand the origin of locomotion that exist amongst primates, the two categories of primates must be analyzed to recognize morphological trait differences. Then, three major determinants can be evaluated to describe the variety of locomotor patterns primates display: the ecological niches in which the primate originates, the current inhabited niches, and the major key aspects of survival such as

Experiments and research on non-human primates has helped advance the fields of biology and medicine. The experiments and research done on primates often plays a major role in testing the safety of new drugs, research on understand how the brain works, and research on how to prevent infections disease in humans. Thanks to research done with animals, medical advances are continuously made. In some way, all humans benefit from animal research. Non-human primates are a group of mammals that consists of monkeys, apes, chimpanzees, lemurs and others. Monkeys are then divided into two smaller groups known as Old World monkeys and New World monkeys. New World monkeys are native of Africa and Asia. Old World monkeys originate from Central and South

They have nails in all digits except for the grooming claw on the second toe. Their arms tend to be shorter than their legs, and they have strong hind legs for jumping, storing the elastic energy, which allows them to jump up to 6.6 feet.

Primates share many human-like factors, and over time, studies are able to now show that non-human primates have become even more like humans in terms of culture and lifestyle. Primates are intelligent, which allows parents of mammals to teach their young, and the young learn much like humans do. From detailed studies of ape behavior, it is concluded that apes, like humans, use tools and patterns to adapt from what they learn in social groups, rather than it being biological. Primates have been found to laugh, support each other, learn how to medicate themselves and others when in need, have family traditions, show off, grieve, and the list goes on. Learning such things, whether it be human or ape, varies from culture to culture, through social

The major primate groups are divided into two groups. The first main group are the Strepsirrhini’s, also called prosimians and include, Lemurs, Lorises and Galago’s. The second main group of primates are called haplorrhines and include, monkeys, apes, and humans

Karen Curiel Professor Feldmeier Physical Anthropology November 8, 2017 Lemurs Lemurs are one of the most primitive primates meaning they are the oldest of the oldest. There are a variety of different species of Lemurs. Sifaka which is a type of lemur is a prosimian and can only be found on the Island of Madagascar. Lemurs can be found in rainforest and other locations similar.