ANT100Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Philopatry, Prehensile Tail, Sifaka
October 8, 2015
Primate Behaviour and Ecology
Basic Goals of Lecture
- How primates differ from other mammals
- Basic taxonomic characters of living primates
- Primate ecology and sociality
- Main conservation issues for primates
Primate Characteristics
- Primates are mammals:
o Warm-blooded: use physiological processes to control body temp
▪ Ex// Sweat to cool down
o Having hair
o Feeding milk to young mammary glands
- Long canines
- Monkey B disease that dissolves brain stems
- Family dies for human to take in monkey
- Highly complex, intelligent, dangerous animals
- Not pets!
- Primates differ from most mammals by having:
o Grasping hands and feet
o Collarbone (clavicle)
▪ Full range of motion in upper limbs
o Radius and ulna
▪ Forearm bones
▪ Ulna form elbow, cross over eachother making x
o Forward facing eyes and stereoscopic vision
▪ We have field overlap in what each eye sees
▪ Nerve impulses from eyes go to brain = depth perception
- Primates aren’t that specialized
o We are a generalized species
Primate Activity Patterns
- Nocturnal: active at night
- Diurnal: active during day
- Crepuscular: active at dawn and dusk
- Cathemeral: active any time of day or night
Primates Diet
- Most primates eat a variety of fruits, insects, flowers and leaves
o Need specialized vat in digestive system to eat leaves unique adaptation
- A few species specialize by eating mostly or only leaves, which take special gut adaptations
to digest, or insects
o Bigger the vat, bigger the diet
- Generally, larger-bodied species can eat more leaves whereas smaller-bodied species can eat
more insects
Primate Taxonomy
- Don’t need to know for test
Strepsirhine Characteristics
- Dental tooth comb
- Most rhinarium (wet nose)
o Use moisture to trap bacteria in food when they lick nose
o Interactive with environment probably smell something first
- Unfused mandibular and frontal symphases
o Frontal bone: forehead bone
o Symphases two bones meat and join
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- Tapetum lucidum
o Reflective eyes
o When light shines into eyes it is magnified before it hits retina
o See better in darkness than us
- Postorbitol bar
o Socket of bone around the eye
o Eye sits in small depression held in place by tissue
- Two superfamilies:
o Lemuroidea and Lorisoidea
o Lemurs and Loris’ and Galagos
Two Strepsirhine Superfamilies
- Lemuroidea
o Madagascar and Comoro islands
o Arboreal quadrupeds and leapers; some partially terrestrial
o Many small-bodied species are nocturnal
o Female dominance
o Varied diet
- Lorisoidea
o Found throughout sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia
o Lorises and Galagos
o Arboreal quadrupeds
o Nocturnal
o Varied diet
Fred, the Sifaka
- Lemurs endemic to Madagascar
- Females bite Fred
- Fred call after Females
- Females are suppose to respond wouldn’t
- Available habitat and food for Fred, but something keeping them from reproducing
Mouse Lemurs
- Studying whether or not they could get across the road
Lorises and Galagos
- South East Asia
- Females activate neurotoxin
- Fast
- Know almost nothing about Galagos
Haplorhini Characteristics
- Dry nose
- Retinal fovea
o Little depression in back of eye that robs us of high quality night vision but
incredibly daytime vision for colour and distance
- Postorbitol closure
- Fused mandibular and fronal symphases (cf. Tarsiers)
- Three indraorders:
o Tarsiiformes, Platyrrhini and Catarrhini
Tarsiiformes
- One genus (Tarsius)
- Found in Southeast Asia (Philippines)
- Small body size (80-139g)
- Relatively large eyes, with fused lower leg bones
o Don’t use eyes to hunt insects and use sense of smell and hearing at night
- Entirely faunivorous
Platyrrhines (Neotropical Monkeys)
- Central and South America
- Body mass: 110g-11.4kg
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