Comparative Primate Blog Post

Mark Glen
Anthro 101
9/19/2012

LEMURS:

a) Lemurs are typically found out in the wild, in what is known as the Old World. ie; Europe, Asia and
Africa. However, they are exclusively native to the Madagascar and Comoro Islands territory.

b) Diet: They are herbivores. They eat fruit and leaves, sometimes even eat insects (mostly the smaller lemurs).

c) Lemurs can be prey to many other animals, so to stay high up in the trees and at mid-level puts a limit on what they can eat. At that level they have iifruits, leaves and insects. This dietary conformity is a direct influence from iiitheir environment, making it an adaptation.


SPIDER MONKEY:

a) They live in the tropical forests of Southern Mexico to Brazil, found in Central and South America.

b) They're herbivores; they eat leaves, fruit, nuts, gums and occasionally insects.

c) This primate isn't much bigger than the other animals that surround its environment. So it isn't preying on many things. It's inability to kill large animals leaves its menu very short, so it has adapted to eating fruits and nuts.


BABOON:

a) They're found in Africa. They sleep in trees or on cliff faces, spend their days in grasslands searching for food while in large groups.

b) They're omnivores; they eat both meat and fruit. In fact, large baboons eat other monkeys, chimpanzees and flamingos.

c) Since they are not in trees throughout the day and are big enough to eat other medium sized animals, fruits and nuts do not satisfy their hunger or nutrition. They also require meat. The way they've adapted to hunting for meat is to hunt in large groups, they also have elongated and very sharp canine teeth.


GIBBON:

a) They're found in Southeast Asia.

b) Omnivores; eat both meat and fruit. They eat plants, leaves, flowers, seeds, tree bark, tender plant shoots, insects, spiders, bird eggs and small birds.

c) They rarely go to the ground and since they are so well equipped to swing through the trees, they are rarely caught by prey. They stay up in the trees at a level where they can easily access bids and their eggs and fruits and leaves. This is how they've adapted to their environment.


CHIMPANZEE:

a) They're found in Western and Central Africa, from the Atlantic coast to the inlands.

b) Omnivores; they eat meat, plants, fruits, seeds, tree bark, plant bulbs, tender plant shoots, flowers, termites, ants, small animals. They even drink water. Their method for obtaining the water is to chew up a leaf and sop up the water like a sponge.

c) Chimpanzees are among the primates that show signs of intelligence. A testiment to this is how they drink their water. They've developed a step by step method to get their H2o, similar to how infants entering their toddler stages begin to form step by step plans to achieve their goals. They aren't likely to be prey all of the time, but they do need to prey on other, smaller animals to reach their nutritional satisfaction.
In totality, they've all evolved in simiar ways. They all eat fruits and plants, all live in trees, and none of them are incapable of being prey. However, some of the primates grew to be larger, causing them to require more nutrition than nuts alone can offer. So they've adapted to eating meat. They grew larger, sharper teeth, and developed tactics and strategies for hunting. Most of them, having to survive in the trees, have just adapted to and settled with only eating fruits, herbs and birds.