They are interesting because they arrived in South America and had adaptive radiation and filled all the niches and then they became specialized and they didn't go anywhere through evolution. They never evolved in to apes.

Why? Competition! Intense competition produces superior forms in terms of products or animals.

New World: Forward facing nostrils , all have tails

Old world: Have downward facing nostrils.

 means your a dental ape

First hardest is the teeth

Second hardest is the maxima

Third hardest is the jaw.

 because it was quadropedal and monkey shaped skull.

It was thought to be an ape primarily because of this Y-5 molar. May have a Tail.

A new group of primates emerged called the apes, The Age of Apes.

Eocene

is the Age of the Prosimians.

End of Eocene its getting hotter and wetter. Warm and Wet!

How do you differentiate an Ape from an Monkey?

1. Bigger Brains!

Monkeys (anthropoids): Have larger brains then the prosimians.

Apes: have larger brains than monkeys.

Humans have larger brains than apes.  

1. Bigger Bodies!

1. Apes are more Upright and are more Semi-Erect.

1. Apes also have flexible arms + shoulders. Monkeys DON'T have this.

1. Ape Arms and Fingers Longer.

1. Spinal Columns tend to be Shorter and less flexible. Monkeys tend to have springy spinal columns.

1. Apes have broad chests, Monkeys have narrow chests.

1. Apes have broad pelvises  (bow like pelvises)

1. No tails

1. Heads are better balanced

1. DO NOT NEED TO MEMORIZE: Human like Nature of the Apes, most fundamental difference. Great apes are more closer to humans then they are to monkeys. Something like a great ape was OUR ancestor.

Apes are terminal branch feeders

You find fruits at the end of the branch therefore apes evolve a totally new type of "brachiation", which is a form of locomotion that involves going hand over hand.

"Post Cranial" Swinging underneath the branch, (like monkey bars)

Best known of the early dental apes is a creature called : "Proconsul" 20-18 mya.

Discovered by Louis + Mary Leakey <--- Know them! Dynasty in the study of human evolution.

They discovered the skull of Proconsul in Lake Victoria.

Had air sinuses in frontal bone. African apes & Humans are the only ones who have these sinuses.

Is 2 of the early hominids (African Apes + Humans) + Hominins.

LCA: Last Common Ancestor

Search images: That's where he grew up  (Kikuyu tribe), Louis Leakey considered himself as a member of the Kikuyu Tribe, he considered himself African. Mary did NOT

Was discovered in Uganda in 1997. It is about 120lbs, 54kg

About 17 million years ago, the land connection was finally made between Asia and Africa.

Outpouring of Apes in to Asia from Africa due to this land connection. (Migration) Among those animals that were migrating, were these Miocene apes. Soon after they migrated to Europe as well.

  In China you find these small gibbon like apes (migration occurred quickly).

Miocene: Hot, moist, densely forested, lots of fruit , a great place to be.

At the end of the Miocene, it got colder and drier and this resulted in the forest retreating.

Apes had to start adapting or they can retreat with the forest. Therefore some may have retreated with the forest and some stayed in the grasslands left behind.

Therefore the ones that stayed (in Africa<---Driest continent) evolved a new form of locomotion, called "knuckle-walking" <---Orangutans/gibbons never evolved knuckle-walking.

Therefore 14 mya, there was a divergence between the Asian apes and African apes.

Founded by Louis Leakey at a place called Fort Ternan in Kenya.

Also found in Turkey

Was the first knuckle-walker and it didn't retreat with the forest.

Found in Siwalik Hills (Pakistan)

Close ancestor to orangutans

Gigantopithecus

Found in Asia, lake Miocene

Extinct approximately 1/2 mya

These ground up dragon bones are usually fossil teeth and bones and are used in medicine.

Van Koenigswald 1935

One of his students discovered primate teeth in 1935 and he said they were from Giganto.

No post-cranial remains found

Shortened canines, thick enamels, enormous molars and a dentition suited for a tough fibrous diet.

Maybe it was a bamboo eater, lost to Giant Panda.

Was probably the largest savannah ape known due to the size of the teeth.

Found in Greece 10 mya 250lb 110kg

Ancestral gorilla maybe??

Also late Miocene, 12-8 mya

Found all over Europe/Asia

Jaws and Teeth (Post-Cranial bones)

Might be ancestral to the African Apes, and therefore Humans.

Could be ancestral to Asian apes but Galdikas does not believe so, but the textbook does.

Found in Kenya?

Upper molars look like Gorillas...? Possibly?

Scavengers affect fossil remains

Teeth & Jaws

Humans:

1. Small canines
2. Canines do not interlock.  (Pongids/apes lock upper ones, lock behind lower canines)
3. No diastema
4. Small incisors
5. Dental arcade is parabolic, parabola like inverted teeth. (Apes have a inverted U-shaped dental arcade)

1. No pointed lower first premolar and no sectorial premolars. We have bicuspid-2 cusp. (Apes have 1 cusp)

History  of Human Evolution:

Louis Leakey found Kenyapithecus and he thought it looked human-like.

Many native origin of stories, start with human beings kind of just being there, spontaneity. Some deity just put them there.

Louis Leakey was influenced by his background (which was kikuyu/missionary).

In the Early 1930's there was a geologist from Yale named Lewis found the first Sirapithecus in the Siwalik Hills.

He also found upper jaw fragments from Ramapithecus. (Rama- Hindu God)

The curvature of the dental arcade struck him because it was parabolic, he then began to believe that this particular creature

Was different from the other creatures of the late Miocene era.

In 1937 Lewis received his PHD, and in his thesis he suggested that Ramapithecus was the earliest human.

In 1961 Louis Leakey discovered Kenyapithecus, and he decides that Kenyapithecus is very similar to Ramapithecus and therefore

He stated that these two were the earliest humans.

They found fossils and the second trick was K/Ar Dating.

Louis Leakey's fossils were found between volcanic ash layers.

Kenyapithecus was found to be 14 mya using this trick.

Molecular Dating (read in textbook)

Sarsh (Serbian Scientist) and Wilson stood up and said that its impossible for the first humans to be 15mya because if you do the

Molecular genetics, the humans and chimpanzees only separated 6 or 7 mya therefore its impossible.

HUGE DEBATE: Molecular Anthropologists vs Palaeoanthropoligsts.

Mammals:

1. Warm-Blooded: Maintain constant body temperature. Adapted to survive environments.
2. Reproductive Economy: mammals have post birth care, they produce milk.
3. Brain Complexity and Size: Mammals do a lot of things reptiles can't do.

• Primates produce less offspring than other mammals. Orangutans produce 4 or less offspring.
• If human brains got any bigger, they would not be able to leave the birth canal.
• Primates are hyper-mammals that took these 3 characteristics to the "extreme"

Reptiles: (Had friend who left python at home without  food for 2 weeks, can survive without food for 3 years)

1. Cold-Blooded: Record for snake not eating is 3 years.

1. Lay Eggs- Produce multiple offspring, like 100s of offspring. Reptiles do not care for eggs.

1. Less Brain Complexity Size: Have very basic cerebral cortex and basic brain.

Mesozoic is the age of reptiles (begain 225 Mya) Had "therapsids" (mix b/w dogs and reptiles, couldn't compete with dinosaurs)

At the end of the Cretaceous, swampy world, dinosaurs ruled

Mammals are small (max size: beaver)

Mammals did not go anywhere

World open to mammals

Dinosaurs went extinct due to possible asteroid? Which resulted in nuclear winter.

Drastic climate change

Mammals did not go extinct for some odd reason (high metabolism)

At the end of Cretaceous resulted in the rise of "Flowering Plants" TREES!

Why are trees important? They produce fruits, <--- a seductive method (using color) for seed dispersal using animals (mammals and birds) Birds evolved!

Certain fruits for certain animals/mammals

Mammals + Birds eat the insects

We are here because dinosaurs went extinct

Bulbous + shorter molars/grinding

Cheek bones broader and stronger

Maester muscle complex

first appeared in Paleocene which is apart of the Cenozoic Era

Accounts for almost 1/3 of all fossils found in late paleocene

Most primitive primates on fossil record

Long fingers, toes and tail

 flying lemurs (do not fly but look like lemurs), gliders pan excellence, found in Philippines/Borneo

plesidapids were ancestoral colugos

Very close genetically to primates, (as are bats and tree-shrews)

Colugos found in Europe and North America (They used to be one)

Turgais Strait

What does a prosimian look like?

1. Hair/fur has color designs
2. Tethered lips in upper jaws
3. Lack fully developed facial muscles

1. Large eyes because many nocturnal...crepesculus

1. Dependence on olfaction
2. Naked moist rhinarium
3. Lateral cleft that divides the nostrils
4. Projecting scout

1. 2-1-3-3 dental configuration (2=incisors, 1=canine, 3=premolars and 3=molars) = 36 teeth total

1. Dental combs (lower incisors + canines)
2. Digits act in unism, more or less
3. Have unusual form of locomotion: Clinging & Leaping

How did the lemurs get from Africa to Madagascar

Extended rafting hypothesis

1. Amphipethicus and Pondangia: transitional creatures from prosimians to anthropoids. Left to descendants. From Burma

1. Eosimias: middle to late Eocene from China. Has anthropoid and prosiminan characteristics but is neither. Very small, infused mandible, but is dental anthropoid. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? Prosimians have 3 cusps in their teeth, monkeys have 4 cusps but old world anthropoids lost that molar tooth.

They are interesting because they arrived in South America and had adaptive radiation and filled all the niches and then they became specialized and they didn't go anywhere through evolution. They never evolved in to apes.

Why? Competition! Intense competition produces superior forms in terms of products or animals.

• Mammals: only humans are bipedal (out of 4000), all primates though are erect or semi-erect postures leading to emancipation of forelimbs. Extended morphological predispositions to bipedalims (humans)

• Why did humans become bipedal?

(230-231) Efficiency, humans walk more efficiently than apes. Humans made a complete transition to the grass land. Radiator Model of Bipedal origin (232: read). Ecology, weather got colder and drier, and there was an advantage to standing up on grass. Patas Monkey, male stands up to look for predators in grasslands (cheetahs of primates). Pg 231, Dietary scenario:

Mating strategy (parenting): has to do with why humans became bipedal. If we assume that the prohibition of labor between male and females is ancient, that means that in hominines males go one way and females go in another. The real reason language occurred is WAR, useful kind of tool. It is more likely that it arose between economic activities between males and females. If you have hands and you are bipedal, you can carry things.

Great Apes                        Humans

1. Heavy brow ridges                        -
2. Prognathism (projecting face)                -
3. Foramen Magnum to rear (under) of skull

(225)    skulls balanced on top of head

Nuchal plane tell you if individual is bipedal

(ape heads are attached by heavy muscles ,

Ours is not).                         Whiplash is a consequence for us

1. Saggital crests (especially male can have a display

function, really can bite and makes your head look bigger)    -   

and well developed ramusIn result very large jaw muscle

1. Large canines
2. Cranial capacity (32-540 cc)                     average 1350 cc (900-2000)
3. Parabolic Dental arcade

1. Divergent toes    (pg 227)                         NOT

1. Wide-knee stance                         Closed-knee stance (mechanics Page 224 memorize the type of vertebrae            of bipedalism, centre of gravity                                     is balanced 224-227
2. Pg 226: iliac blades of the ape pelvis are not             bowl-like

Bowl-like                                   

1. Foot structure of feet in Apes doesn’t have arches        2 arches in foot (absorb shock when you walk and reduce fractures in legs) APES DON’T HAVE STRUCTERED ARCHES IN FOOT
2. Apes have long arms b/c they need to balance and hold

Whole weight of their bodies