Essays on Primate

Human beings are unique in their quest to understand the origin of life, and the urge rationalize nature and the world that surrounds them. We have developed various disciplines to better understand the natural world around us (Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, Biology) and ourselves (Psychology, Physiology etc.). Anthropology is a discipline that tries to understand what it means to be human by looking at biological, evolutionary, cultural, and linguistic aspects. The word “Anthropology” is derived from Greek “Anthropos” meaning human and “Logos” meaning word(Lewis, Jurmain, & Kilgore, 2012). There are four major subfields of anthropology viz., biological, archeological, linguistic and ...

Miopithecus ogouensis – Gabon talapoin

The Gabon talapoin (Miopithecus ogouensis) is a small species of monkey found not only in Gabon but in other African countries including Angola, Congo, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea. Its range includes the Ogooue River, after which it was named but extends to other riparian habitats from the equatorial forest zone south of the Sanaga River in southern Cameroon to other tributaries of the Congo River including the Lefini and Almira Rivers . Although the monkey is listed as being of least concern in the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species , it is suffering significant wide-ranging habitat decline. Nowak has found ...

In global societies, discussions concerning the use of animals in medical tests for research are uncomfortable and controversial. Modern technology often broadcasts horrific photos of procedures being conducted on helpless creatures accompanied by claims of untrustworthy results and skewed statistics. In the long run, animals will continue to be used for testing in laboratories until the value of the practice is diminished. “The benefits of animal research have been enormous and it would have severe consequences for public health and medical research if it were abandoned “ (Festing and Wilkinson, n.p.). This paper will present information regarding whether animal testing ...

Abrigo do Lagar Velho is a rock-shelter in the Portuguese valley that is famous for the stratigraphic range of the Upper Paleolithic human occupations within that area.

Absolute dating technique (chronometric dating) refers to the process of revealing the age on a certain time scale.

Acclimatization is the response of an organism to a gradual change in environmental conditions by adjusting and sustaining within these changes. Acheulian (Acheulean) is a tool made of stone that had round cutting edges and was used during the Lower Palaeolithic era.

Adolescent growth spurt refers to the sharp growth in height and weight rates t during adolescence.

Aegyptopithecus refers to the extinct primate of the Oligocene Period, resembling a modern-day lemur, whose fossils were found in Egypt. Afar Triangle is the region that is part of the ...

Primates are an order of mammals and while they share characteristics with other mammals, they also have their own identifiers that set them apart. For example, since primates rely more on their vision than their sense of smell, they have shortened snouts (Orzech. “Primate Features”). The fact that they rely so heavily on their sight makes perfect sense when considering that they have forward facing eye orbits which gives them the best position for taking in the most amount of visual stimuli (Orzech, “Primate Features”). Primates also have less teeth than other mammals, they do, however, have specific types ...

Describe which general fossil primate groups appear and radiate during the following geological epochs: Eocene, Miocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene. For each of the geological epochs, identify the general primate group that first appears and radiates during that epoch. In addition, give the time range in millions of years for each epoch and provide at least one example of a specific primate genus and/ or species that is representative of each general primate group. 2. List and briefly describe at least five elements of the post-cranial anatomy found in humans, but not in apes, that facilitate efficient bipedal locomotion. Provide specific ...

Question 1: Describe the basis of the principle of superposition as well as why we cannot date a 1 million year old hominid with radiocarbon dating. According to Hull (191), the principle of superposition states that for any layers or sequence of surface-deposited material, a bed is older than the one above it and younger than the one below it. However, this is not always the case since rocks and beds can buckle causing younger rocks to go underneath older bed. Therefore, the principle should be applied critically. Basically, the principle states that younger rockers lie on older rocks ( ...

Secrets of the Mind by V.S. Ramachandran Secrets of the Mind with V.S. Ramachandran The secret functions carried out by our brain first came into the attention of Dr. Ramachandran while examining the case of an amputee, Derek Steen, who lost his right arm above the elbow in a car accident. His condition garnered a curiosity in Ramachandran when he (Derek) reported that he had felt tingling and stroking sensations in his right arm (that was removed surgically) while shaving the left side of his face. This opened an opportunity for Dr. Ramachandran to study phantom limbs in detail. ...

The importance of primates for evolutionary theory can hardly be overstated. The applications of the traits – the foundation of the distinction between primates and other organisms – are widespread and profound in anthropology as well as basic biology. Primates are a diverse class of organisms that share a suite of derived traits (characteristics primates inherited from their common primate ancestor) that separates them from other organisms (Ryan). For instance, primates share several inherited primeval traits with other animals from a distant mammalian common ancestor such as having body hair (fur) and being warm-blooded and even more distant terrestrial vertebrate predecessors ...

Part One: Primate Observation Field Notes

The observations of the primate took place at San Francisco Zoo. The following information provides the comments on the field notes made about the two primates – the Colobus Monkey and the Western Lowland Gorilla. The Colobus Monkey – a medium sized monkey of moderate build at San Francisco Zoo is found in the Doelger Primate Discovery Center (DPDC). Together with other species such as the pied tamarins, black howler monkey, siamangs and the squirrel monkeys, the colobus monkey is managed at DPDC under the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Species Survival Plans. These plans are designed to protect those species ...

Introduction

Even though the concept of evolution is a typical narrative, it remains one of the most highly contentious of the topics. Major disagreements persist in the field, particularly when the evolutionary origin and physical modification of primates are the subject matter of discussion. Because of these differences, lots of significant finds in the field have attracted considerable amounts of opposition from experts depending on the species, or the side angle of evolution one recognizes (Ravosa and Dagosto). Disputes often center around locomotion and posture – whether a particular species was fully upright or could walk bipedally, brain size (intelligence), sexuality ...

A primate city is the one that is in the largest hierarchy in the country or region. These primate cities contributed greatly to the development of Southeast Asia. The Southeast Asia as a whole depended mainly on the Primate cities as their major source of income. In most of those countries that were lucky to have primate cities, they helped greatly in building and boosting the economic status of the country. They depended on the cities for economic, social and political development of the country. They contained the major resources which the country needed to make major developments. At ...

The River and the Chimp is an analytical book written by David Quammen about how the HIV originated from chimpanzees in an African forest (Quammen, 2015). The acumen of this book challenges the many unscientific beliefs about the origin of HIV and spread. There is a great need to understand where this scourge originated to beat the diverse stereotypical and unscientific beliefs. By examining the works of David Quammen in the book The River and the Chimp, this research paper shall focus on discussing the origin of HIV. The knowledge of the origin of HIV is of immense importance ...

Did Human Bipedalism Evolve from a Knuckle-walking Ape Ancestor Did Human Bipedalism Evolve from a Knuckle-walking Ape Ancestor

Introduction

The narratives of human evolution are one of the oft-told scientific stories whenever the topic of the origin of man crops up. However, this topic is also one of the thorniest and most highly contentious. There are major disagreements in the manner in which man first came to be, and every interpretation of almost every new find on the matter will be sure to find opposition among scholars on the field (Harcourt-Smith & Aiello, 2004). While there are numerous causes of disputes ...

Based on what I have learned, the primates are intelligent animals. For instance, the chimpanzees and other apes are intelligent because they can learn words, play with each other, play with objects, and they even mourn their friends' death. As compared to humans, psychological abilities vary from one animal to the other. Half of the intelligence that primates have come from their genes. The environmental factors contribute the rest of the intelligence in primates. On the other hand, the human intelligence and development are based on cultural factors such as formal education (Matsuzawa). From the study in human beings ...