Chapter 6: Biology in the Present: The Other Living Primates
Chapter Summary
Focus of the chapter:
- What is a primate?
- Primates are arboreally adapted.
- Primates have dietary plasticity.
- Primates exhibit high levels of parental investment in their young.
- Different types of primates have different social behaviors.
Primates are defined by a suite of traits that separate them from other mammals. They possess a versatile skeletal structure suited to arboreal life. They have opposable thumbs for grasping and enhanced touch and vision. Primates rely less on smell and hearing. Their dental variation allows for a varied diet. Extensive social relationships and behaviors are combined with high parental investment in young.
The wide variation in primate species can be divided into four groups: prosimians, New World monkeys, Old World monkeys, and apes. Humans are grouped with the apes, though some debate exists over how to cluster the apes within the clade. Anatomical and genetic traits are utilized in classification systems today.
Primates are very social creatures. They express themselves in social situations through a variety of behaviors, including grooming (a bonding behavior).
Primate social groups reflect the complexity of their social relationships. Group structures can range from one male with several females to groups of many males and females to solitary individuals. Primates exhibit both competitive and cooperative behaviors, all of which can be studied within an evolutionary context.
Primate researchers have long been collecting evidence that nonhuman primates have culture, particularly material culture, or the ability to make simple objects to alter their environment (for example, stick tools to fish for termites).
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