BISC 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Dian Fossey, Louis Leakey, Jane Goodall
28 Apr 2018
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Unit 4 Primate Behavior Study
• Modern Primatology was born in 1960s 1970s
• Big change was:
1. People started having long term observation and research- they’re open ended.
Sometimes weeks, months years. It’s an ongoing collection of data
2. They went to the wild instead of zoos
• Before people just went to the zoo to study them-didn’t decipher much
• Jane Goodall was a pioneer. Started in about 1961 and still at it
• Several years after Dian Fossey stated studying mountain gorillas but got killed
protecting them from poachers
• Birute sometimes teaches this course, still does some research on orangutans but mostly
educates
• Louis Leakey not a primatologist, but a fossil hunter. Pioneer on hunting for early human
fossils. “we can keep digging up and figure out anatomy, but need to observe behavior to
know better”
• Today there’s dif. types of study approaches to primates. There’s still captive studies but
not some poor depressed monkey in a zoo. They’re treated very very well and kept
specifically for research.
➢ Pros-you can control their env. Their diet, their interactions with others, their
exposure and make sure they don’t go anywhere and study them 24?7
➢ Cons-their behavior isn’t going to be natural –so you don’t study social behavior
but their capabilities.
• Semi-Free Ranging - This is mostly dealing with artificially established populations.
They can’t leave the island so they’re stuck there, but this isn’t their native land, they
didn’t evolve here so not completely natural. Its much closer to nat. than the captive
studies.
• Field Studies - If you’re really interested in Group social behaviors you do field study.
Their roles their mating choice, etc. really time and labor intensive. A new group isn’t
used to people and don’t want you around. It’s going to take a while they become
comfortable and allow you to study hem. There’s poaching, also they think of humans as
poachers.
• Complex social interaction-a main trait of primates. To understand the benefits, you need
to observe.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Unit 4 primate behavior study: modern primatology was born in 1960s 1970s, big change was, people started having long term observation and research- they"re open ended. It"s an ongoing collection of data: they went to the wild instead of zoos, before people just went to the zoo to study them-didn"t decipher much, jane goodall was a pioneer. We can keep digging up and figure out anatomy, but need to observe behavior to know better : today there"s dif. types of study approaches to primates. There"s still captive studies but not some poor depressed monkey in a zoo. They"re treated very very well and kept specifically for research. Their diet, their interactions with others, their exposure and make sure they don"t go anywhere and study them 24?7. Cons-their behavior isn"t going to be natural so you don"t study social behavior but their capabilities: semi-free ranging - this is mostly dealing with artificially established populations.
