Primate

? Primates
Olive Baboon
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia Subclass: Eutheria (unranked) Euarchontoglires Superorder: Euarchonta Order: Primates Linnaeus, 1758
Families
13, See classification

A primate (L. prima, first) is any mammal of the biological order Primates, the group that contains all the species commonly related to the lemurs, monkeys, and apes, with the latter category including humans. Primates are characterized by being anatomically unspecialized, with limbs capable of performing a variety of functions, refined five-digit hands and feet adapted for grasping, including opposable thumbs, flattened snouts, and prelonged pre- and postnatal development, among other features.

The Primates order is divided informally into three main groupings: prosimians, monkeys of the New World, and monkeys and apes of the Old World. The prosimians are species whose bodies most closely resemble that of the early proto-primates. The most well known of the prosimians, the lemurs, are located on the island of Madagascar and to a lesser extent on the Comoros Islands, isolated from the rest of the world. The New World monkeys include the familiar capuchin, howler, and squirrel monkeys. They live exclusively in the Americas. Discounting humans, the rest of the simians (monkeys and apes), the Old World monkeys and the apes, inhabit Africa and southern and central Asia, although fossil evidence shows many species existed in Europe as well.

Based on purely biological aspects (DNA, proteins, morphology, etc.), it is clear the humans are primates. Indeed, humans and chimpanzees share more than 98% identity by various molecular comparisions (protein sequences, allele differences, DNA nucleotide sequences, etc.) (Wood 2006). However, humans are also defined in cultural, spiritual, psychological, and ** other terms that make them qualitatively very different from other primates, .... sometimes efforst to make humans into "just primates," has been reversed and efforts are made to define othe rprimates as "persons". (see **)

Primates are found all over the world. Non-human primates occur mostly in Central and South America, Africa, and southern Asia. A few species exist as far north in the Americas as southern Mexico, and as far north in Asia as northern Japan.

The English singular primate is a back-formation from the Latin name Primates, which itself was the plural of the Latin primas ("one of the first, excellent, noble").

Physical description

All primates have five fingers (pentadactyly), a generalized dental pattern, and a primitive (unspecialized) body plan. Another distinguishing feature of primates is fingernails. Opposing thumbs are also a characteristic primate feature, but are not limited to this order; opossums, for example, also have opposing thumbs. In primates, the combination of opposing thumbs, short fingernails (rather than claws), and long, inward-closingfingers is considered a relic of the ancestral practice of brachiating through trees. Forward-facing color binocular vision was also useful for the brachiating ancestors, particularly for finding and collecting food, although recent studies suggest it was more useful in courtship. All primates, even those that lack the features typical of other primates (like lorises), share eye orbit characteristics, such as a postorbital bar, that distinguish them from other taxonomic orders.

Old World species tend to have significant sexual dimorphism. This is characterized most in size difference, with males being up to a bit more than twice as heavy as females. New World species generally form pair bonds and these species (including tamarins and marmosets) generally do not show a significant size difference between the sexes.

Habitat

Many modern species of primates live mostly in trees and hardly ever come to the ground. Other species are partially terrestrial, such as baboons and the Patas Monkey. Only a few species are fully terrestrial, such as the Gelada and Gorilla.

Primates live in a diverse number of forested habitats, including rainforests, mangrove forests, and mountain forests to altitudes of over 3000 m. Although most species are generally shy of water, a few are fine swimmers and are comfortable in swamps and watery areas, including the Proboscis Monkey, De Brazza's Monkey, and Allen's Swamp Monkey, which even has small webbing between its fingers. Some primates, such the Rhesus Macaque and the Hanuman Langur, are hemerophile species and cities and villages have become their typical habitat.

As the table below illustrates, in many primate species, the males are larger than the females. However this picture is incomplete. All but one of these are Old World species, and in this group the mating system is usually polygynous; sexual dimorphism is expected with this kind of social structure. As the table shows, sexual dimorphism is much less in the marmosets (New World) than in the other species listed, and this is characteristic of marmosets and tamarins in comparison with the Old World monkeys and apes. This is because marmosets and tamarins generally form pair bonds.

Species	Female	Male
Gorilla	105 kg (231 lb)	205 kg (452 lb)
Human	62.5 kg (137.5 lb)	78.4 kg (172 lb)
Patas Monkey	5.5 kg (12 lb)	10 kg (22 lb)
Proboscis Monkey	9 kg (20 lb)	19 kg (42 lb)
Pygmy Marmoset	120 g (4.2 oz)	140 g (5 oz)

Types of primates

There are three basic groupings of primates. The 9,9, and 9 are also called simians.

Then describe each of these three groupings, using three equal signs, rather than the two currently used. cut down apes a lot, and even the monkeys and direct to main. the monkeys article will includd the old world and new world, and the apes will include much of the material currentl below (which will be removed).

Prosimians

Prosimians are generally considered the most primitive extant primates, representing forms that were ancestral to monkeys and apes. With the exception of the tarsiers, all of the prosimians are in the suborder Strepsirrhini. These include the lemurs, Aye-aye, and lorises. The tasiers are placed in the suborder Haplorrhini (with the monkeys and apes). Due to this reason the classification is not considered valid in terms of phylogeny, as they do not share a unique last common ancestor, and anatomical traits.

New World monkeys

The New World monkeys are the four families of primates that are found in Central and South America: the Cebidae (marmosets, tamarins, capuchins, and squirrel monkeys), Aotidae (night or owl monkeys), Pitheciidae (titis, sakis, and uakaris), and Atelidae (howler, spider, and woolly monkeys). The four families are ranked together as the Platyrrhini parvorder, placing them in a different grouping from the Old World monkeys and the apes.

All New World monkeys differ slightly from Old World monkeys in many aspects, but the most prominent of which is the nose. This is the feature used most commonly to distinguish between the two groups. The scientific name for New world monkey, Platyrrhini, means "flat nosed," therefore the noses are flatter, with side facing nostrils, compared to the narrow noses of the Old World monkey. Most New world monkeys have long, often prehensile tails. Many are small, arboreal, and nocturnal, so our knowledge of them is less comprehensive than that of the more easily observed Old World monkeys. Unlike most Old World monkeys, many New World monkeys form monogamous pair bonds, and show substantial paternal care of young.

Old World monkeys and apes

Old World monkeys

The Old World monkeys or Cercopithecidae are a group of primates placed in the superfamily Cercopithecoidea in the clade Catarrhini. From the point of view of superficial appearance, they are unlike apes in that most have tails (the family name means "tailed ape"), and unlike the New World monkeys in that their tails are never prehensile (adapted to be able to grasp and hold objects). Technically, the distinction of catarrhines from platyrrhines (New World monkeys) depends on the structure of the nose, and the distinction of Old World monkeys from apes depends on dentition.

Several Old World monkeys have anatomical oddities. The colobus monkeys have a stub for a thumb; the Proboscis Monkey has an extraordinary nose while the snub-nosed monkeys have almost no nose at all; the penis of the male Mandrill is colored red and the scrotum has a lilac color, while the face also has bright coloration like the genitalia and this develops in only the dominant male of a multi-male group.

The Old World monkeys are native to Africa and Asia today, but are also known from Europe in the fossil record. They include many of the most familiar species of non-human primates.

Two subfamilies are recognised, the Cercopithecinae, which are mainly African but include the diverse genus of macaques, which are Asian and North African, and the Colobinae, which includes most of the Asian genera but also the African colobus monkeys.

Apes

Apes are the members of the Hominoidea superfamily of primates. Under the current classification, there are two families of hominoids:

• the family Hylobatidae consists of 4 genera and 12 species of gibbons, including the Lar Gibbon and the Siamang, collectively known as the "lesser apes";
• the family Hominidae, consisting of gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, and humans, collectively known as the "great apes."

A few other primates have the word "ape" in their common names, but they are not regarded as true apes.

Except for gorillas and humans, all true apes are agile climbers of trees. They are best described as omnivorous, their diet consisting of fruit, grass seeds, and in most cases some quantities of meat and invertebrates—either hunted or scavenged—along with anything else available and easily digested. The apes are native to Africa and Asia, although humans have spread to all parts of the world.

Most ape species are rare or endangered. The chief threat to most of the endangered species is loss of tropical rainforest habitat, though some populations are further imperiled by hunting for bushmeat.

Many people do not consider the term "apes" to include humans, although biologists generally do consider humans as apes. The terms "non-human apes" or "non-human great apes" is used with increasing frequency to both show the relationship of humans to the other apes while maintain the distinction of humans. The great ape family was previously referred to as Pongidae, and humans (and fossil hominids) were omitted from it.

Biologically, chimpanzees, gorillas, humans, and orangutans are all more closely related to one another than any of these four genera are to the gibbons. Awkwardly, however, the term "hominid" is still used with the specific meaning of extinct animals more closely related to humans than the other great apes (for example, australopithecines). It is now usual to use even finer divisions, such as subfamilies and tribes to distinguish which hominoids are being discussed. Current evidence implies that humans share a common, extinct, ancestor with the chimpanzee line, from which we separated more recently than the gorilla line.

Both great apes and lesser apes fall within Catarrhini, which also includes the Old World monkeys of Africa and Eurasia. Within this group, both families of apes can be distinguished from these monkeys by the number of cusps on their molars (apes have five—the "Y-5" molar pattern, Old World monkeys have only four in a "bilophodont" pattern). Apes have more mobile shoulder joints and arms, ribcages that are flatter front-to-back, and a shorter, less mobile spine compared to Old World monkeys. These are all anatomical adaptations to vertical hanging and swinging locomotion (brachiation) in the apes. All living members of the Hylobatidae and Hominidae are tailless, and humans can therefore accurately be referred to as bipedal apes. However there are also primates in other families that lack tails, and at least one (the Pig-Tailed Langur) that has been known to walk significant distances bipedally.

Although the hominoid fossil record is far from complete, and the evidence is often fragmentary, there is enough to give a good outline of the evolutionary history of humans. The time of the split between humans and living apes used to be thought to have occurred 15 to 20 million years ago, or even up to 30 or 40 million years ago. Some apes occurring within that time period, such as Ramapithecus, used to be considered as hominins, and possible ancestors of humans. Later fossil finds indicated that Ramapithecus was more closely related to the orangutan, and new biochemical evidence indicated that the last common ancestor of humans and other hominins occurred between 5 and 10 million years ago, and probably in the lower end of that range.

The intelligence and humanoid appearance of non-human apes are responsible for legends which attribute human qualities; for example, they are sometimes said to be able to speak but refuse to do so in order to avoid work. They are also said to be the result of a curse—a Jewish folktale claims that one of the races who built the Tower of Babel became non-human apes as punishment, while Muslim lore says that the Jews of Elath became non-human apes as punishment for fishing on the Sabbath. Christian folklore claims that non-human apes are a symbol of lust and were created by Satan in response to God's creation of humans. It is uncertain whether any of these references is to any specific non-human apes, since all date from a period when the distinction between non-human apes and monkeys was not widely understood, or not understood at all.

As of 2006, there are eight extant (living) genera of hominoids. They are the four great ape genera (Homo (humans), Pan (chimpanzees), Gorilla, and Pongo (orangutans)), and the four genera of gibbons (Hylobates, Hoolock, Nomascus, and Symphalangus). (The genus for the hoolock gibbons was recently changed from Bunopithecus to Hoolock (Mootnick and Groves 2005).

Linnaeus's inclusion of humans in the primates with monkeys and apes was troubling for people who denied a close relationship between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. Linneaus's Lutheran Archbishop had accused him of "impiety." In a letter to Johann Georg Gmelin dated February 25, 1747, Linnaeus wrote:

It is not pleasing to me that I must place humans among the primates, but man is intimately familiar with himself. Let's not quibble over words. It will be the same to me whatever name is applied. But I desperately seek from you and from the whole world a general difference between men and simians from the principles of Natural History. I certainly know of none. If only someone might tell me one! If I called man a simian or vice versa I would bring together all the theologians against me. Perhaps I ought to, in accordance with the law of Natural History.

Accordingly, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in the first edition of his Manual of Natural History (1779), proposed that the primates be divided into the Quadrumana (four-handed, i.e. apes and monkeys) and Bimana (two-handed, ie. humans). This distinction was taken up by other naturalists, most notably Georges Cuvier. Some elevated the distinction to the level of order.

However, the many affinities between humans and other primates — and especially the great apes — made it clear that the distinction made no scientific sense. Charles Darwin wrote, in The Descent of Man:

The greater number of naturalists who have taken into consideration the whole structure of man, including his mental faculties, have followed Blumenbach and Cuvier, and have placed man in a separate Order, under the title of the Bimana, and therefore on an equality with the orders of the Quadrumana, Carnivora, etc. Recently many of our best naturalists have recurred to the view first propounded by Linnaeus, so remarkable for his sagacity, and have placed man in the same Order with the Quadrumana, under the title of the Primates. The justice of this conclusion will be admitted: for in the first place, we must bear in mind the comparative insignificance for classification of the great development of the brain in man, and that the strongly-marked differences between the skulls of man and the Quadrumana (lately insisted upon by Bischoff, Aeby, and others) apparently follow from their differently developed brains. In the second place, we must remember that nearly all the other and more important differences between man and the Quadrumana are manifestly adaptive in their nature, and relate chiefly to the erect position of man; such as the structure of his hand, foot, and pelvis, the curvature of his spine, and the position of his head.

Classification and evolution

Close relations

The Primate order lies in a tight clustering of related orders (the Euarchontoglires) within the Eutheria, a subclass of Mammalia. Recent molecular genetic research on primates, flying lemurs, and treeshrews has shown that the two species of flying lemur (Dermoptera) are more closely related to the primates than the treeshrews of the order Scandentia, even though the treeshrews were at one time considered primates. These three orders make up the Euarchonta clade. This clade combines with the Glires clade (made up of the Rodentia, rodents, and Lagomorpha, rabbits) to form the Euarchontoglires clade. Variously, both Euarchonta and Euarchontoglires are ranked as superorders. Also, some scientists consider Dermoptera a suborder of Primates and call the "true" primates the suborder Euprimates.

Euarchontoglires
    ├─Glires
    │    ├─rodents (Rodentia)
    │    └─rabbits, hares, pikas (Lagomorpha)
    └─Euarchonta
         ├─treeshrews (Scandentia)
         └─N.N.
              ├─flying lemurs (Dermoptera
              └─N.N.
                   ├─Plesiadapiformes (extinct)
                   └─primates (Primates)

Classification

Ring-tailed Lemur, a strepsirrhine primate

In older classifications, the Primates were divided into two superfamilies: Prosimii and Anthropoidea. The Prosimii included all of the prosimians: all of Strepsirrhini plus the tarsiers. The Anthropoidea contained all of the simians.

In modern, cladistic reckonings, the Primate order is also a true clade. The suborder Strepsirrhini, the "wet-nosed" primates, split off from the primitive primate line about 63 million years ago (mya). The seven strepsirhine families are the four related lemur families and the three remaining families that include the lorises, the Aye-aye, the galagos, and the pottos. Some classification schemes wrap the Lepilemuridae into the Lemuridae and the Galagidae into the Lorisidae, yielding a three-two family split instead of the four-three split as presented here. Other lineages of lower primates inhabited Earth. During the Eocene, most of the northern continents were dominated by two dominant groups, the adapids and the omomyids. The former is considered a member of Strepsirrhini, but it does not have a tooth-comb like modern lemurs. The latter was related closely to tarsiers, monkeys, and apes. Adapids survived until 10 mya; omomyids on the other hand perished 20 million years earlier.

The Aye-aye is difficult to place in Strepsirrhini. Its family, Daubentoniidae, could be a lemuriform primate and its ancestors split from lemur line more recently than the lemurs and lorises split, about 50 mya. Otherwise it is sister to all of the other strepsirrhines, in which case in evolved away from the main strepsirrhine line between 50 and 63 mya.

Emperor Tamarin, a New World monkey

The suborder Haplorrhini, the "dry-nosed" primates, is composed of two sister clades. The prosimian tarsiers in family Tarsiidae (monotypic in its own infraorder Tarsiiformes), represent the most primitive division at about 58 mya. The Simiiformes infraorder contains the two parvorders: the New World monkeys in one, and the Old World monkeys, humans, and the other apes in the other. This division happened about 40 mya. However about 30 mya, three groups split from the main haplorrhine lineage. One group stayed in Asia and are closest in kin to the "dawn monkey" Eosimias. The second stayed in Africa, where they developed into the Old World primates. The third rafted to South America to become the New World monkeys. Mysteriously the aboriginal Asian Haplorrhini vanished from record once Africa collided with Eurasia 24 mya. Apes and monkeys spread into Europe and Asia. Close behind came lorises and tarsiers, also African castaways. The first hominid fossils were discovered in Northern Africa and date back 7 mya. Modern humans did not appear until 0.2 mya, eventually becoming the most prevalent primate and mammal on Earth.

The discovery of new species happens at a rate of a few new species each year, and the evaluation of current populations as distinct species is in flux. Colin Groves (2001) lists about 350 species of primates in Primate Taxonomy. The recently published third edition of Mammal Species of the World (MSW 2005) lists 376 species. But even MSW3's list falls short of current understanding as its collection cutoff was in 2003. Notable new species not listed in MSW3 include Cleese's Woolly Lemur (named after British actor and lemur enthusiast John Cleese) and the GoldenPalace.com Monkey (whose name was put up for auction).

Extant primate families

• ORDER PRIMATES
  • Suborder Strepsirrhini: non-tarsier prosimians
    • Infraorder Lemuriformes
      • Superfamily Cheirogaleoidea
        • Family Cheirogaleidae: dwarf lemurs and mouse-lemurs (24 species)
      • Superfamily Lemuroidea
        • Family Lemuridae: lemurs (19 species)
        • Family Lepilemuridae: sportive lemurs (11 species)
        • Family Indriidae: woolly lemurs and allies (12 species)
    • Infraorder Chiromyiformes
      • Family Daubentoniidae: Aye-aye (1 species)
    • Infraorder Lorisiformes
      • Family Lorisidae: lorises, pottos and allies (9 species)
      • Family Galagidae: galagos (19 species)
  • Suborder Haplorrhini: tarsiers, monkeys and apes
    • Infraorder Tarsiiformes
      • Family Tarsiidae: tarsiers (7 species)
    • Infraorder Simiiformes
      • Parvorder Platyrrhini: New World monkeys
        • Family Cebidae: marmosets, tamarins, capuchins and squirrel monkeys (56 species)
        • Family Aotidae: night or owl monkeys (douroucoulis) (8 species)
        • Family Pitheciidae: titis, sakis and uakaris (41 species)
        • Family Atelidae: howler, spider and woolly monkeys (24 species)
      • Parvorder Catarrhini
        • Superfamily Cercopithecoidea
          • Family Cercopithecidae: Old World monkeys (135 species)
            • Subfamily Cercopithecinae
              • Tribe Cercopithecini (Allen's Swamp Monkey, talapoins, Patas Monkey, Silver Monkey, Guenons, Owl-faced Monkey, etc.)
              • Tribe Papionini (Macaques, mangabeys, Gelada, Hamadryas Baboon, Olive Baboon, Yellow Baboon, mandrills, etc.)
            • Subfamily Colobinae
              • African group (colobuses)
              • Langur (leaf monkey) group (langurs, leaf monkeys, surilis)
              • Odd-Nosed group (doucs, snub-nosed monkeys, Proboscis Monkey, Pig-tailed Langur)
        • Superfamily Hominoidea
          • Family Hylobatidae: gibbons or "lesser apes" (13 species)
            • Genus Hylobates
            • Genus Hoolock
            • Genus Symphalangus
            • Genus Nomascus
          • Family Hominidae: humans and other great apes (7 species)
          • Genus Pongo: orangutans
          • Genus Gorilla: gorillas
          • Genus Homo: humans
          • Genus Pan: chimpanzees

Some prehistoric primates

• Adapis, an adapid
• Australopithecus, a human-like animal
• Branisella boliviana, an early New World monkey
• Dryopithecus, an early ape
• Eosimias, an early catarrhine
• Sahelanthropus tchadensis, a possible ancestor of humans
• Aegyptopithecus zeuxis, an early haplorrhine
• Pliopithecus, ancestor of the modern gibbons
• Gigantopithecus, the largest ape
• Godinotia, an adapid
• Megaladapis, a giant lemur
• Notharctus, an adapid
• Plesiopithecus teras, a relative of lorises and galagos
• Protopithecus brasiliensis, a giant New World monkey
• Sivapithecus, an early ape
• Tielhardina, the earliest haplorrhines
• Victoriapithecus, an early Old World monkey
• Pierolapithecus catalaunicus, a possible ancestor of large apes

Legal status

File:Monkey5.jpg

Monkeys imported for experimentation in a crate. Credit: BUAV

Humans are the only apes recognized as persons and protected in law by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and by all governments, though to varying degrees. The non-human apes are not classified as persons, which means that where their interests intersect with that of humans they have no legal status.

The status of non-human primates has generated much debate, particularly through the Great Ape Project which argues for their personhood. Many argue that the other apes' cognitive capacity in itself, as well as their close genetic relationship to human beings, dictates an acknowledgement of personhood. The Great Ape Project, founded by Australian philosopher Peter Singer, is campaigning to have the United Nations endorse its Declaration on Great Apes, which would extend to all species of chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans the protection of three basic interests: the right to life, the protection of individual liberty, and the prohibition of torture.

Thousands of primates are used every year around the world in scientific experiments because of their psychological and physiological similarity to humans. The species most commonly used are chimpanzees, baboons, marmosets, macaques, and African green monkeys. In the European Union, around 10,000 were used in 2004, with 4,652 experiments conducted on 3,115 non-human primates in the UK alone in 2005. As of 2004, 3,100 non-human great apes were living in captivity in the United States, in zoos, circuses, and laboratories, 1,280 of them being used in experiments. European campaign groups such as the BUAV are seeking a ban on all primate use in experiments as part of the European Union's current review of existing law on animal experimentation.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Groves, Colin (2005-11-16). Wilson, D. E., and Reeder, D. M. (eds) Mammal Species of the World, 3rd edition, Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-801-88221-4, 111-184.

.)

ref name=PT>Primate Taxonomy (Smithsonian Institute Press, 2001), Colin Groves (ISBN 1-56098-872-X )</ref>

• ^ Primates in Question (Smithsonian Institute Press, 2003), Robert W. Shumaker & Benjamin B. Beck (ISBN 1-58834-176-3 )

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

• Primate  ^history
• Prosimian  ^history
• New_World_monkey  ^history
• Old_World_monkey  ^history
• Ape  ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

• History of "Primate"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.