1. Evolution of Primates
Section 32.3

2. Primate Characteristics
Grasping hands and feet
Cling to their mothers
Climb trees
Hold food
Forward facing eyes
Binocular vision aids in depth perception
Useful for tree-dwelling and capturing prey

3. Grasping hands

4. Forward facing eyes

5. Nonhuman Primates Monkeys Apes Diurnal
Feed mainly on fruits and leaves
Have opposable thumbs
Apes
Gibbons, orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees
Large brains
No tails

6. Gibbons & Gorilla

7. Hominids Primates that walked upright Early ancestors of humans
Australopithecines:
Larger brain cavity than apes
Lucy – the most famous fossil
Other fossil hominids have been discovered

8. Fossil hominid skulls

9. Fossil Lucy