I watched several documentaries which allowed me to observe different species of primates living in their natural habitats. I took notes of what I saw and researched information on the species to fully understand the meaning of each discernable behavior. The first documentary that I watched was made by KPBS San Diego and allowed me to observe a community of Bonobos living in their natural habitat in Congo. Second documentary that I watched was a BBC documentary which allowed me to observe a small community of Chimpanzees living in Uganda. I then watched a second BBC documentary in which observed Crested Black Macaques in their natural habitat, the Timbuktu Rainforest I could observe and take notes. I then reviewed the documentaries whiles listening to the observer’s comments. During my observations, I witnessed many different primate activities such as social grooming, the use of tools, and hunting. I was also able to identify several different primate behaviors and social structures. Additionally, watching different species of primate allowed me to identify their similarities and differences. Moreover, I was also able to recognize similarities between them and us, humans.
The Peaceful Bonobo Apes of the Congo for example:
They are of the suborder Haplorhini, the infraorder Anthropoidea, the superfamily Hominidae, and the family Hominidae. Following is a list of physical features I could observe:
-Generally tall and thin body
-Upper limbs longer than lower limbs
-Large
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,
A few weeks ago, I spent a lovely Monday afternoon observing two different primates at the Santa Ana Zoo. I got to the zoo around two in the afternoon, and to my surprise, the zoo was decently crowded. The Santa Ana Zoo is smaller in comparison to other zoos like the Los Angeles Zoo, but still had a decent amount of animals there. Covering a small 20 acres of land, I came across two primates that fit perfectly for the purposes of this course project. I chose to observe an endangered ape, the white-handed gibbon, and an endangered new world monkey, the golden-headed lion tamarin.
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
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.
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
I think that if culture is defined as learned behavior, than it is reasonable to say that primates posses a form of culture. Primates have been observed making tools to aid in collecting food and developing communication system, both of which are learned behaviors.
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.
The evolutionary changes in the Euprimate skulls allowed them to rely more on vision than on small because, most mammals including pottos and certain other primates, are colorblind, they can't distinguish the color red. Therefore, the color may have evolved in primates because it helped them to pick out ripe red or orange against the green forest background. However, color vision may also help some leaf eating monkey species to pick out the most nutritions green leaves. 2. A lower primate (such as lemur) grasps objects as compared to a higher primates (such as a monkey), the grasping hands of primates are an adaptation to life in the trees.
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 observation of primates also acts as the basis of where comparisons can be made i.e., the way of living, the social behaviors, and environmental adaptations (Haviland, 2016). Also, Haviland et al. (2016) imply that the study of primates could allow us to elucidate how the evolution of primates after migration, both convergent and divergent from one place to the other in the continent.
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?
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
What makes a primate a primate? A primate is defined by its many incredible features. A primate is a mammal that has certain characteristics such as: flexible fingers and toes, opposable thumbs, flatter face than other mammals, eyes that face forward and spaced close together, large and complex cerebrum, and social animals. What makes a primate a primate is its characteristics. Some of the physical features primates are identified by is their teeth, snouts, eyes, ears, arms, legs, fingers, and toes. Human evolution is a big part of humans being primates, and having similar features and characteristics make humans to be considered to be a primate, but both humans and non-humans have differences.
According to National Geographic, scientists have sequenced the genome factor of the chimpanzee and found that humans are 98.5% similar to the ape species. The chimpanzee is our closest relative in the animal kingdom; however, some people are not aware of our resembling traits with chimpanzees. Jane Goodall’s, In the Shadow of Man, describes some similar traits humans and chimpanzees have such as their facial expressions and emotions, use of tools, and diet.