ANT203H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Linnaean Taxonomy, Stereopsis, Prognathism
Document Summary
Primates are extremely diverse in biology and behaviour. Live in hot springs in snow covered mountains. Stereoscopic vision, grasping hands and feet, and good hand-eye coordination resulted from adaptive shift from ground-living to life in the trees. But other arboreal animals do not have primate adaptations. But nocturnal insectivorous primates hunt using smell and sound also. Primates co-evolved with flowering plants to produce fruit - stereoscopic vision evolved to discriminate between food items. But flowering plants evolved millions of years before primates; other mammals at the time also exploited these plants, and front-facing eyes are not found in earliest primates. Initially divided this order into these four orders. Nails instead of claws (except grooming clays in. Increased reliance on vision, decreased reliance on smell. Reflected in a smaller olfactory bulb and reduction in prognathism (snout shortening) Generally larger brain to body size ratio, but there are exceptions. Many primates have a mixed diet - they are omnivores.
