Primates: Resources, Research, and Information

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Primates are the group or “order” of mammals, including humans, apes and monkeys, as well as “lower primates”, called Prosimians. There may be as many as 600 species of primates in existence today. All primates are believed to have started out as tree dwellers, and many still are. The shoulders of primates are designed for arm-over-arm movement through trees. Humans still have this capability, as any child climbing the “monkey bars” knows.

Primate Resources

The First Primates: Primates are remarkably recent animals. Most animal species flourished and became extinct long before the first monkeys and their prosimian ancestors evolved.

Primates are usually classified into three groups: small New World monkeys that live in the Americas, Old World monkeys and apes that live mostly in Africa and prosimians, the more primitive primates that live in Madagascar and Southeast Asia. New World primates have tails that can grasp things, while Old World primates sometimes don’t have tails at all. On the other hand, most Old World primates have opposable thumbs, and most New World primates do not.

Primate Resources

The Taxonomy and General Characteristics of Prosimians, Monkeys, Apes, and Humans

Other common features of all primates are: grasping hands and feet; increased thumb motion; fingernails instead of claws; fingerprints; larger brains than other orders of animals; a greater reliance on the sense of vision than the sense of smell; single births rather than litters; a long life span; longer periods of growth and development in infancy, childhood and adulthood; and a tendency to live in social groups.

All primates are mammals, which means the females give birth to live babies and nurse them. All primates also have two separate bones in their arms and lower legs, apparently to facilitate better motion of the limbs and more precise movements. Though every type of primate uses its hands to bring food to its mouth, the diet of primates varies widely. Some eat leaves and fruit, while others eat insects or meat.

Most primate species live in tropical rainforests. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, as many as half of the world’s primate species today are at risk of extinction because of the destruction of tropical rain forests, meat hunting and illegal wildlife trade. Twenty-five species are in immediate danger of disappearing: five in Madagascar, six in Africa, 11 in Asia, and three in Central and South America.

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Great apes and other primates.

For example, the golden-headed langur, which lives only in the Gulf of Tonkin near Vietnam, has only 60 or 70 individuals left. The sportive lemurs of Madagascar number only about 100, about the same number of eastern black-crested gibbons left in Vietnam.

One of the smallest primates alive today is the pygmy marmoset, sometimes called the “finger monkey” because it is about 5 inches tall and weighs 4 ounces. The largest is the gorilla, which can grow up to 6 feet tall and weigh as much as 350 pounds.

The primate that most resembles humans is the chimpanzee. About 95 percent of the DNA of chimps and humans is the same. Chimps live in groups of 10 to 50 individuals, usually in tropical rain forests and savannas in Africa. There are two types: the common chimpanzee and the bonobo. The average male chimp is 5.5 feet tall and weighs 100 pounds, while the average female chimp, because she is less muscular, weighs about 82 pounds. Chimpanzees are intelligent and mostly peaceful, although males can become aggressive. They eat an almost exclusively vegetarian diet, but males sometimes hunt and eat meat as well. Like gorillas, chimps walk on all fours using their hands’ knuckles to support them.

Primate Resources

Wisconsin.edu Primates in the News.
Apes, monkeys, and you.
Pictures of Primates.
Using primates as research subjects has a unique history in the topic of animals in science.

Resource by T.Price

I am a mom of 2 boys who loves to spend time with them doing fun things outdoors. In my spare time I have my own things I enjoy doing such as gardening, reading old books, and being a closet history buff.

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