Transcript File - NCEA Level 3 Biology

Representatives of
the Primate Group
Prosimians
Prosimii means “before the monkeys”.
This group includes the living lemurs,
lorises and tarsiers, now found in some
parts of Africa and Asia and Madagascar.
Most prosimians living in areas other than
Madagascar are nocturnal, or very shy,
hidden creatures, because the monkeys
are all active during the day they avoided
competition .
Prosimians
The dominant sense for the prosimians is
scent.
Many have special scent glands or mark
their territory with urine, an exception being
the tarsiers.
Tarsiers
These are the size of a rat, have enormous eyes
and relatively long legs and large ears.
They are nocturnal and live in the trees.
They cling upright to branches and have an
amazing ability to turn their heads 180 degrees
to the right or left.
Their tales are long with a brush tip.
They are carnivorous, living on insects and small
vertebrate prey.
Lemurs
From the Latin word lemures meaning
ghosts.
Often hard to see in the trees.
Range from a 12cm mouse lemur to a 1m
tall Indri.
The ring-tailed lemur has a dog-like face, a
naked nose, furry ears, grasping hands
and eats leaves, flowers and fruits.
Lorises
These have adapted to a life similar to the
sloth.
By hardly moving they manage to escape
detection.
Sluggish, solitary and nocturnal, they feed
largely on fruit, gum, insects, birds and
birds’ eggs.
They are found in south-east Asia and
west Africa.
Monkeys
About 30 million yrs ago, the ancestral
primate line separated to form 2 families of
Monkey.
The dominant sense for monkeys in sight,
so most are diurnal.
They have good colour vision, allowing
them to judge if fruit is ripe or leaves are
fresh.
Monkeys
They use colour as a method of
communication.
A very colourful group of animals.
New World Monkeys
Found in Central and South America and are all
arboreal.
They have well-separated outward-facing
nostrils.
They have larger brains than the prosimians, and
long tails which in many groups are prehensile.
This enables them to hang onto branches while
their hands are free to reach out to the outermost
branches where most fruit grows.
New World Monkeys
They range from the tiny Tamarins and
Marmosets to the Howler Monkeys and
include the Spider Monkey, OrganGrinder’s Monkey and Capuchin.
Old World Monkeys
These have nostrils which are close
together and face downwards.
They live in Africa and Asia.
They have better thumb grip than the New
World monkeys, but none of them has a
prehensile tail.
They are arboreal and ground dwelling.
Old World Monkeys
The Colobus and Langur monkeys are
primarily leaf-eaters and are typically
arboreal.
The baboons and Macaques are 4-legged
ground dwellers
They have insensitive pads of tough skin
on their rumps, these allow them to sleep
or sit upright while wedged in the branches
of trees.
Baboons
Have powerful arms and legs of equal
length, an arched tail, and long dog-like
faces.
The males have huge canines and
dominant males have long manes.
They show sexual dimorphism.
A baboon troop is a highly organised group
that fiercely defends the females and
young.
Macaques
These are widely spread.
In Japan, there are some Macaques that
live in the snow.
One of these has learned to warm up in
the winter by bathing in the hot volcanic
springs nearby.