1. Primates

2. Thinking Questions Did humans evolve from apes?
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Are non-human primates portrayed accurately in media (TV, Tarzan, Planet of the Apes, King Kong, Curious George)?
Why do you think tree-dwelling primates evolved an opposable thumb?
How does the primate hand structure compare to that of other animal species?

3. Why study non human primates?
Fill in gaps in human evolutionary history
Understand how natural selection shapes behavior
Examine how ape behavior is like human behavior
Chimpanzee- Jane Goodall
Gorilla- Dian Fossey
Orangutan- Birute Galdikas
Why did these researchers study these type of primates instead of others?

4. Primate Characteristics
65 million years ago
When did humans (hominids) appear?
4 million years ago
Earth 4 billion years old
166 species currently identified
Most are tree dwellers (arboreal)
Most are herbivores (eat fruit and leaves)
Some are omnivores (eat anything)
Different types of teeth?
Most have 32 teeth
Molars, incisors, canines

5. Primate Characteristics
Pentadactyl?
5 digits on hands and feet
Prehensile hands & feet?
m/video/animals/mammals- animals/monkeys-and- lemurs/gibbon_swinging/
Brachiating
Mobile, grasping with sensitive friction pads, nails, friction skin, opposable thumb
Body Hair

6. Primate Characteristics
Retention of the clavicle
Upright posture: bipedalism
Stereoscopic vision (3D vision)
Eyes that look forward with overlapping visual fields evolution of retina for color vision
Enclosure of eyes in a bony ring or socket
Reduction of olfactory apparatus, especially snout, reduces sense of smell

7. Primate Characteristics
Lengthened maturation period, low reproductive rate
Infant dependency and gestation compared with most mammals, breast feeding
Long life span
Large, complex brain (cerebral cortex)
Especially part concerned with vision, tactile inputs, muscle coordination, memory & learning
High degree of socialization
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8. Primate Distribution

9. Difference from Humans
What are some differences?
Absence of tail
Larger brains
Skeleton adapted for suspensory locomotion- short broad chests, dorsal scapulae, long arms, mobile wrists, elbows and shoulders
Vocal cords differs from humans, so inability to speak

10. Primate Taxonomy Divided into two suborders:
Prosimians: lemurs, lorises, tarsiers
Anthropoids: New world monkeys, old world monkeys, apes/humans

11. Apes vs. Monkeys What are some differences between apes and monkeys?
Only a small number of types of apes, hundreds of types of monkeys.
Apes are usually larger and heavier than monkeys.
Apes have no tail.
Apes have a more upright body posture than monkeys, and are often able to walk on 2 legs.
Apes have a broad chest.
Apes rely on vision rather than smell, and thus have shorter noses than some monkeys.
Apes have a large brain to body size ratio compared with other animals.
Apes only live in Africa and Asia (monkeys also live in South America).

13. Prosimians Lemurs, Lorises, & Tarsiers Small to medium sized
38-65 million years
“Furry”
Aboreal
Well developed olfactory apparatus
Long muzzle with rhinarium (moist naked surface around nostrils- wet nose)
Claws on some digits
Tooth comb for foraging and grooming
Vision well developed but not fully stereoscopic

14. Prosimians Lemurs Lorises Only found in Madagascar Diurnal
Feed on leaves and fruit
Live in structured groups
Saifaka, ringtailed, Indrii, mouse/dwarf lemurs
Lorises
Africa and South East Asia
Slow moving, eyes close together
Nocturnal
Hunts insects
Solitary

15. Prosimians Tarsiers South East Asia- Borneo, Philippines
Elongated ankle bones (tarsal) or foot bones
Nocturnal
Eats insects
Small in size, head, eyes, and ears large
Rotate head 180 degrees
Single mated pair

16. Anthropoids New World Monkeys Old World Monkeys Apes and Humans
Characteristics
Nails on all digits
Complete bony eye socket
Extensive thumb and big toe opposability
Lack of rhinarium (wet nose) and tooth comb

17. New World Monkeys
Marmoset, tamarin, capuchin, squirrel, night, uakaris, sakis, howler, spider monkey, wooley
Wide flat nostrils and broad nasal septum
38-50 million years
36 teeth
Most have long prehensile tails
Completely arboreal and diurnal
Central and South America
Prominent skulls
More intelligent
Stereoscopic vision

18. New World Monkeys Howler Monkey
Loudest calls among primates (i.e. the name!!)
Consequently, very low aggressive encounters
Arboreal
Diurnal
Rain forest habitat
Feed mainly on leaves
Prehensile tails (“grasping” appendage)

19. New World Monkeys Squirrel Monkey
Abundant food in leaves, fruits, flowers, and even insects
Consequently – widespread habitat
Smaller
Arboreal
White face, dark eyes
Long non-prehensile tails used for balance

20. My Experience Primate Sanctuary
mals-news/chimp-attack-video-missions-wcvin/
Monkeys hate meanies

21. Old World Monkeys- Cercopithecoidea
Largest group of primates
African in origin
Narrower noses with thinner nasal septum and downward facing nostrils
No prehensile tails, presence of check pouches
2 premolars
Arboreal and terrestrial
Ischial callosities- Hardened area of skin serves as cushion (thickened, hairless, and often bright-colored skin on buttocks)
Proboscis, Mandril, Rhesus macaque, Baboons

22. Old World Monkeys- Cercopithecoidea
Guenons (Blue Monkey)
Small (12-20lbs)
Arboreal
Omnivores
Live in troops of about 20 with one dominant male
Larger sexual dimorphism due to competition among mating males
Non-dominant males live solitary and will mate with wandering females of a troop
Large variation in facial patterns

23. Old World Monkeys- Cercopithecoidea
Baboons
Largest monkey species (80-150lbs)
Adapted for walking on the ground (non-arboreal) using all 4 limbs
Classic dimorphism…large difference btw male and female. Large muscles, long tail, large teeth and jaws…used only for aggressive “display”. Will actually stand and defend against predators!!
Complex social organization…both male (“alpha”) and female have rank
Males leave the troops around age 4, females stay (prevents inbreeding)
Highly successful social species
Hairless “Ischial callosites” on their butts…bare callous to sit

24. Japanese Macaque & Proboscis Monkey
The mountain-dwelling Japanese macaque lives in the north of Honshū where there is snow-cover eight months of the year
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The Proboscis monkeys needs his big snout to get attention from the ladies. It also amplifies his warning call when he spots a crocodile trying to sneak up on a wading female.
ammals-animals/monkeys-and-lemurs/weirdest- proboscis-monkey/

25. Hominoidea HOMINOIDEA Lesser Apes Great Apes Hominidae
Gibbons Orangutan Human
Siamangs Gorilla
Chimpanzee
Bonobo

26. Ape Distribution

27. Lesser Apes
Larger Brain, no tail, evolved from Old World Monkeys about 25 million years ago
Gibbons
3 feet tall. Strictly arboreal, mostly herbivorous.
Walk upright (bipedalism), but mostly move by Brachiation (“swinging). Can leap 20 feet and brachiate at 35 mph (fastest of all primates!!)
Thumbs are small and useless. Hands are used like hooks for swinging quickly
Monogamous couples live with offspring (like human!!). Leaves the family after 6-8 years.
Very little sexual dimorphism, due to low competition among males
Non confrontational, and due to their speed, are rarely preyed upon.

28. Great Apes
Orangutans
First of the Great Apes to evolve (10 million years)
Heaviest tree dwelling animal (arboreal) in the world (165lbs)
Shy solitary animal, difficult to study naturally. Male and female socialize only to mate.
Diet limited to hard to find fruits…better to be on you own!
Can grasp with their feet

29. Great Apes Gorillas Gorilla Talk
Only discovered in the 19th century by European scientists
Contrary to myth, gorillas are the shyest and gentlest of all primates, in spite of lbs body standing over 6 feet tall!!
Live in small family groups of about One large dominant silver-back male leads the troop. Females move out after maturity (no inbreeding)
Herbivorous – eats 70lbs of vegetation per day!!
Cannot grasp with their feet….usually walk on all fours…NON-arboreal.
Chest pounding may indicate threat, sexual arousal, play, frustration, or dominance.
Yawning is a submissive gesture
No “rump pad” (ischial callosites) – need to sleep in soft nest of leaves
Threat display: (usually accompanied with loud screams and roars)
1. Bluff Charge: charge past adversary
2. Rush Charge: charge and stop short
3. Slam charge: slams directly into adversary
Gorilla Talk
animals/apes/gorilla-talk-eorg/
Dian Fossey: Gorilla in the Mist (1998)

30. Great Apes
Bonobos
Used to be called pygmy chimps, but they’re not much smaller than chimps
Slimmer build, narrower shoulders, longer legs smaller head
Inhabit different areas in the wild, so they don’t mix with chimps.
Enjoy water (unlike chimps)…also have small webbing between toes!
Walk upright more easily than chimps
Society dominated by females (unlike chimps!)
Like humans, bonobos are sexually active all the time
Love, Not War: Sex is used to maintain harmony within the group!
Sex is used to avoid aggression, reconcile, or relieve tension (even between same sex bonobos)
Bonobo mom’s in charge
animals/apes/chimp_bonobo_alphafemale/

31. Great Apes
Chimpanzee
Share over 98% of human genes…share common ancestor.
Jane Goodall, Gombe, Tanzania (1960)…witnessed tool use and carnivores
60-90 lbs. Only 200,000 left in the wild.
Usually NON-arboreal
Unlike baboons, males stay with the group while females migrate.
Huge array of facial expressions and vocalizations (pant-hoot)
Males hunt monkeys in groups, each with a specific role (driver, blockers, chasers, ambushers)
Chimps at war: they may seek out and kill members of a different community…not eaten for food. Only primate (other than human) to commit “murder”. Suggested that it’s for territorial expansion…war???

32. Tools
Criteria traditionally used to show the evolution of human intelligence.
However, it no longer is used to determine intelligence because it is NOT linked with the development or complexity of the Central NS.
It’s an adaptive mechanism for animals to get food rather than changing their physical morphology.
We change our behaviors rather than our bodies (generalization rather than specialization)
Crack nuts with rocks
Use twigs to dig for termites
Goodall worked with chimpanzees for over 35 years. She has shown that chimps not only make and use tools, but display remarkable similarities to humans in terms of behavior. 
animals/apes/gorilla_lowland_tools/

33. Intelligence
Chimpanzees doing fractions? Language and math skills have long been thought to be solely human abilities, but an Ohio State University researcher has taught some chimpanzees to solve simple arithmetic problems. Primatologist Sally Boysen, who has been working with chimpanzees for many years, shows that the chimps are truly processing the information and not just learning by rote. Boysen's discoveries mean we may have to re- evaluate how we think about primate intelligence.
Bonobo’s shaking head “no”
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34. Communication
Since the 1940s, numerous scientists have tried to determine whether meaningful communication between humans and apes might be possible through the use of a symbolic language. Their results have often seemed promising on the surface. One very famous gorilla named Koko, for example, seems to have learned how to “speak” with American Sign Language. Dr. Francine Patterson spent almost two decades teaching American Sign Language to Koko, a lowland gorilla. Koko has a sign language vocabulary of over 600 words. Dr. Patterson and many other researchers believe that vocabulary development is one of the best indicators of intelligence.

35. Learning
Reaching adulthood… No other species has a longer developmental period than humans do, but other primates are close behind.

36. Learning
The investment in a long learning period and more intense parenting:
Many animals learn by operant and classical conditioning. Primates spend much more effort on observational learning…watching another perform a behavior, then remembering what they see and trying it themselves in a safe setting.
This process saves time and energy and also lowers the dangers associated with making a mistake in the wild.
Taking advantage of what others in the group already know…building tradition (a collection of learned and socially transmitted behaviors)
Evidence shows that the tendency to imitate is probably innate.

37. Innate or Learned?
Observational learning occurs primarily in primates, but otherwise is actually quite rare in the animal kingdom (although does occur in a few others, such as some mammals and birds)
It is an efficient, fast, and safe way to function within your environment. The passing on of behaviors through generations may result in traditions.
For most animals, it is innate (you’re born with it). These instinctive responses protect animals from danger.
Lots of research still being done!! Nature versus nurture.

38. Early Childhood
Do you find parallels in human society to primate society?
Do you think non-human primates have culture? If so, how is it passed from one generation to the next?
Do you think peacemaking and cooperation is instinctive in primates or have they developed a system of mutual cooperation in which they will all benefit?
Contact Comfort- touch, warmth, protective security
Peer Relations- social isolation led to over-aggressiveness, sexual inadequacy, rejection by others…also, rocking, swaying, self- mutilation…never learned to get along with others in a very social society.

39. Mother Deprivation
Motherless mothers would sit on the infant, throw it against the wall, or try to kill it
Infants who were raised by mothers then separated from them became passive, sad, upset, tearful, and depressed (Anaclitic depression)
Normal development was slowed down on all levels.
How many of these findings can we generalize to humans?

40. Behavior
Behaviors (aggression/courting) are species-specific from generation to generation.
What do you think stimulate this behavior?
Are behaviors environmental, seasonal, hormonal, temperature-dependent?
Inherited behavior is stimulated by specific cues, which they call releasers or sign stimuli
Power struggle
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Chimps mourning death
mmals-animals/apes/zambia-chimpanzee-death- reaction-vin/

41. Play May be social, exercise, or exploration.
Costs; use energy, risk harm
Benefits must outweigh costs…healthy development of the brain and nervous system. (Greater stimulation led to larger brain with more synapses.) Practice movements needed for survival…deer vs. mountain lion playing. Explore in safety. Practice social behaviors. Stimulates the development of the nervous system and thinking abilities. And maybe just for fun!
mammals-animals/apes/chimp_baby/

42. Pets or Zoos?
Many species of primates are kept as pets by humans, the Allied Effort to Save Other Primates (AESOP) estimates that around 15,000 primates live as exotic pets in the United States. The expanding Chinese middle class has increased demand for primates as exotic pets in recent years. Pet trade was banned in the U.S. in 1975, but smuggling still occurs along the United States – Mexico border, with prices ranging from $3000 for monkeys to $30,000 for apes.
Not recognized as an assist animal, but Capuchin monkeys' can be used to assist quadriplegic humans because their intelligence, memory, and manual dexterity make them ideal helpers.
Primates are kept in zoos around the globe. Historically, zoos were primarily a form of entertainment, but more recently have shifted their focus to conservation, education and research. Many zoos now feature naturalistic exhibits and educational material for the public; in the United States many participate in the Species Survival Plan (SSP), developed by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), to maximize genetic diversity through captive breeding. Primates born in captivity cannot be released back into the wild because captive-born primates lack the knowledge and experience to survive in the wild if released. Second, zoos provide living space for primates and other animals threatened with extinction in the wild.

43. Scientific Research or Space?
The Great Ape Project (GAP) does not permit chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, and gorillas be used for animal experiments.
Primates are used as model organisms in laboratories and have been used in space missions.
Thousands of non-human primates are used around the world in research because of their psychological and physiological similarity to humans. In particular, the brains and eyes of primates more closely parallel human anatomy than those of any other animals. Primates are commonly used in preclinical trials, neuroscience, ophthalmology studies, and toxicity studies. Rhesus macaques are often used, as are other macaques, African green monkeys, chimpanzees, baboons, squirrel monkeys, and marmosets, both wild-caught and purpose-bred. In 2005, GAP reported that 1,280 of the 3,100 primates living in captivity in the United States were used for experiments. In 2004, the European Union used around 10,000 primates in such experiments; in 2005 in Great Britain, 4,652 experiments were conducted on 3,115 primates. Governments of many nations have strict care requirements of primates kept in captivity. In the US, federal guidelines extensively regulate aspects of NHP housing, feeding, enrichment, and breeding. European groups such as the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments are seeking a ban on all primates use in experiments as part of the European Union's review of animal testing legislation.]

44. Conservation
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists more than a third of primates as critically endangered or vulnerable. Common threats to primate species include deforestation, forest fragmentation, monkey drives (resulting from primate crop raiding), and primate hunting for use in medicines, as pets, and for food. Large-scale tropical forest clearing is widely regarded as the process that most threatens primates. More than 90% of primate species occur in tropical forests. The main cause of forest loss is clearing for agriculture, although commercial logging, subsistence harvesting of timber, mining, and dam construction also contribute to tropical forest destruction. In Indonesia large areas of lowland forest have been cleared to increase palm oil production, and one analysis of satellite imagery concluded that during 1998 and 1999 there was a loss of 1,000 Sumatran orangutans per year in the Leuser Ecosystem alone.
Madagascar, home to five endemic primate families, has experienced the greatest extinction of the recent past; since human settlement 1,500 years ago, at least eight classes and fifteen of the larger species have become extinct due to hunting and habitat destruction. Among the primates wiped out were Archaeoindris (a lemur larger than a silverback gorilla) and the families Palaeopropithecidae and Archaeolemuridae.

45. Poaching
Primates with a large body size (over 5 kg) are at increased extinction risk due to their greater profitability to poachers compared to smaller primates. They reach sexual maturity later and have a longer period between births. Populations therefore recover more slowly after being depleted by poaching or the pet trade.Data for some African cities show that half of all protein consumed in urban areas comes from the bushmeat rade. Endangered primates such as guenons and the drill are hunted at levels that far exceed sustainable levels. This is due to their large body size, ease of transport and profitability per animal. As farming encroaches on forest habitats, primates feed on the crops, causing the farmers large economic losses. Primate crop raiding gives locals a negative impression of primates, hindering conservation efforts.
There are 21 critically endangered primates, 7 of which have remained on the IUCN's "The World's 25 Most Endangered Primates" list since the year 2000: the silky sifaka, Delacour's langur, the white-headed langur, the gray-shanked douc, the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey, the Cross River gorilla and the Sumatran orangutan. Miss Waldron's red colobus was recently declared extinct when no trace of the subspecies could be found from 1993 to A few hunters have found and killed individuals since then, but the subspecies' prospects remain bleak.
animals/apes/gorillas-executed-congo-vin/

46. No more primates!