Primates (Lemurs, Lorises, Tarsiers, Monkeys and Apes)

• Main Authors: Rosenberger, Alfred L, Hartwig, Walter C
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2013
• Subjects: Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470015902.a0001572.pub3; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/9780470015902.a0001572.pub3; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1002/9780470015902.a0001572.pub3

Abstract The modern primates are a diverse order of mammals that includes lemurs, lorises, tarsiers, monkeys, apes and humans. They are united by a 65 My evolutionary history originally built on an adaptive foundation of tropical arboreality and so they share a collection of traits that are unique among mammals, such as an excellent sense of balance, acute vision, good hand–eye coordination, a large grasping first toe, prehensile feet and hands and a flexible, athletic limb anatomy. Primates also tend to live in relatively large social groups and often have correlatively enlarged brains. They almost always give birth to singletons that grow over a prolonged period, which is advantageous to cognitive development, learning and socialisation. Fossil nonhuman primates have been found on all continents but Australia and Antarctica. Primates have been important elements of tropical and subtropical faunas since mammals rebounded following the mass extinction that also promoted the demise of dinosaurs. Key Concepts: Primates are a highly diversified and successful order of mammals adapted to an arboreal, tropical lifestyle. There are three major surviving radiations – lemurs and lorises (strepsirhines) and Old World monkeys and apes (catarrhines) occur in Africa and Asia, and New World monkeys (platyrrhines) live in Central and South America – but many species are now threatened with extinction and the fourth radiation consists of only one genus, the tarsiers of eastern Asia. Although they arose from different ancestral stocks and display their own distinctive character, each radiation exhibits parallel evolution in dietary, locomotory and social adaptation to a treed environment, and all exhibit the universal primate characteristics of grasping big toes, some form of manual prehension and a preference for eating fruits – except for the exclusively predaceous tarsiers. Fossil primates are fairly well known and modern in appearance as early as the Eocene epoch, when many existing orders of mammals are also prevalent, but ...