1. 2009 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Seminar on The Evolution of Human Diets (session 180-082) Organized by Matt Sponheimer and Peter Ungar The evolution of human diets according to the extant primate gut morphology and taste perception Claude Marcel HLADIK, Bruno SIMMEN & Patrick PASQUET CNRS, Eco-Anthropologie et Ethnobiologie Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (France)

2. The digestive tract of a colobus monkey, Colobus polykomos (Gabon, 1972) Journal of Morphology (1980)

3. Lepilemur leucopus (consuming exclusively leaves) > < Galago elegantulus (feeding on gums)

4. A model of the absorbing area of the digestive tract related to body size (allometry) 1 day > < > >

5. Gastro-intestinal allometry: humans as compared to other mammals (180 gut samples, including those of 50 primate species) Chivers & Hladik, 1980 Journal of Morphology Hladik, C.M., Chivers, D.J. & Pasquet P. Current Anthropology 1999 < > < < <

6. Taste thresholds of non-human primates for sucrose solutions (two-bottle test method, data from D. Glaser B. Simmen) Homo sapiens sucrose in mM > < < < <>

7. Blind tests for determining taste recognition thresholds Fructose, Sucrose, Sodium chloride, Quinine hydrochloride, PROP, Citric acid, Tannic acid, Oak tannin

8. additive tree (stress<0.001) taste threshold Homo sapiens (N=412) Human babies from video of Matty Chiva Non-human primates by Steiner et al. (2001) > > < Hladik, C.M., Pasquet, P. Danilova, V. & Hellekant, G. C.R. Palevol. (2003)

9. Sodium and other minerals in primate food plants

10. Taste recognition thresholds for sodium chloride For non-human primates, salt concentration in food plants is below 1 mM In human populations the median taste threshold is between 8mM(=0.4 g/l) and 125 mM

11. The gustatory system of fishes,located on the skin, enables perception of salts The genes coding for chemoreceptors of terrestrial vertebrates derived from those of fishes. When primates coevolved with angiosperms, selection of sets of chemoreceptors was adapted to sugars and alkaloids, using the primitive gustatory system… that can respond to salts Why primates actually perceive salts?

12. Ptyalin and starch