65 mya – 53 mya

37 mya – 22.5 mya

22.5 mya – 5 mya

5 mya – 1.8 mya

0.01 mya – present

age of mammals.

the very first primate was found

-plesiadapiforms – 1^st fossil found that was thought to be a primate

            -first primates show up

cooling and drying trend

            -start looking like modern primates

            -Omomyids: tarsier-like

            -Adapids: lemur-like

Platyrrhines a new world

            -Catarrhines à old world

            -origins of platyrrhine/catarrhine split

-ceropithecoids à monkeys, old world

            -hominoids à apes and humans

            -you can tell them apart because hominoids don’t have tails

hominids (humans)

            -origin of most modern groups, hominids show up

A.M. Homo sapiens

                        -ice ages

            -ice ages, evolution of anatomically modern Homo sapiens

groups all the descendents of a common ancestor into a group, no matter what they look like

-example: cladistic classification groups chimps and humans together into the “paninae” to reflect that they are sister taxa (sister taxon = the taxon most closely related to a group or species)

                        -Homologies: common anscestor

                                    -Strepsirrhines – lemurs, lorises

                                    -Haplorrhines – Anthropoids and tarsiers

groups animals together on the basis of overall similarity (this is often called “evolutionary classification” to indicate that there is alimit to this – only fairly closely related species are grouped in gradistic classification).

-example: gradistic classification would group chimps with gorillas and orangutans because they all have the same overall appearance.

                        -based on similarties

                        -Prosimian –Anthropoid

                                    -Prosimian – lemurs, lorises, and tarsiers

grooming claws

-big eyes

-no tartum lucidum (something to do with the retna)

-mainly carnivors

-their nose is not connected to their upper lip

-big ears

-unfused manible

Primate vs. Derived Characteristics

-Primate characteristics: those characteristics that were present in the common ancestor of a group of animals

                        -all primates have them

-Derived characters: those characteristics that are shared by only a subset of a group of animals, all descended from a common ancestor.

            -modified (nails instead of grooming claws)

Members of the order of mammals, Primates which includes prosimians, monkeys, apes, and humans.

-A list of features and trends that are seen in primates as a group:

-features that define a group are shared by all members, or their immediate ancestors, to the exclusion of all other organisms.

-example: the grasping big toe of primates (note that humans have a grasping-type big toe, like other primates, but it is slightly modified for walking on two legs).

Members of suborder of Primates, the Prosimii. Traditionally, the suborder includes lemurs, lorises, and tarsiers.

: Lorises, bushbabies, lemurs, the aye-aye.

New World Monkeys (list presented in lecture)). Callithrichidea (marmosets, tamarins), Cebidae (howler monkeys, squirrel monkeys, “pithecines” (=the really ugly and goofy looking critters), cebus monkeys, spider monkeys, tit monkeys, woolly spider monkeys, night monkeys).

thirteen primate trends/traits 

1.      5 digits

2.      flexibile hands and feet

3.      hind leg dominance

4.      retention in clavicle

5.      generalized teeth

6.      generalized diet

7.      reduced snout and sense of smell

8.      expansion of brain

9.      emphasis on vision

10.  elaboration on vision

11.  flexible learned behavior

12.  form groups with males present

13.  infant dependancy

: Old World monkeys, great apes, lorises, and galgos

Old World monkeys, Pongo (orangutans) Gibbons, Orises, and Galagos

all fours above the branch

all fours on the ground

like us.

swings from the arms under the branches

            -slow climber: small animal, climbs slowly, always holding on.

holds onto vertical tree trunks, jumps with powerful hindlegs.

big things that climb around hanging from branches, like the orangutan

eat fruit

eat mostly leaves

the threshold in boy size below which mammals get their protein from insects, and above which they get their protein from leaves.

-If they weigh below 500 grams they their protein from eating insects, but if they are above 500 grams they must also eat leaves to get their protein

– group composed of one adult male, one adult female, and their offspring.

multi-male female, where a group of males live with a group of females.

1. Males hate each other and fight for access to females. Males usually establish a linear dominance hierarchy.

2. Several females form a bond with a male, but these “single-male” units aggregate daily to form larger bands. Males are hostile to each other – also known as a “multilevel society.” Groups of related males defend a territory embracing a large group of unrelated females. Mating is promiscuous, and males don’t hate each other so much, also known as “fission-fusion” society or “community.”

1. Where resources are patchy, groups of females will band together and provide mutual defense of a territory to ensure that there is enough food for themselves by keeping other females out.

2. Regardless of resource availability and distribution, diurnal primates will form groups to help defend against predators. This explains why folivorous primates live in groups. Note that female defend territories from other females for access to resources, while males will defend groups of females for other males.

Infanticide 

where male chimpanzees kill baby chimpanzees because they want the females to make more baby chimpanzees because the males want to be the father of the babies.

-this can be prevented with either monogamy or have multiple partners so that the male chimpanzees cannot identify who the father of the baby chimpanzee is.

-Males will kill the offspring of females so that the females will come into estrous and he can mate with them. This is a male reproductive tactic and is contingent on two things:

            1. lactational amenorrhea

2. Males know which offspring they did not sire. Note that females develop several counterstrategies to overcome infanticide, the most effective of which is confusing paternity by promiscuous mating.

Cultural Behavior

needs to be taught and transmitted

Primate Affiliation, Aggression, and Cultural Behavior

one animal is able to “boss around” another, most commonly by simply supplanting the animal without a fight.

a linear sequence of dominance among animals.

-Linear male dominance hierarchy: Males set up a “pecking order” so that Bob is dominant to everybody: Chuck is dominant to everybody except Bob: Bill is dominant to everybody except Bob and Chuck and so on.

                                    -certain males have priority access to females

                                    -this is based on kinshiphus,

A linear dominance hierarchy, except now it is whole groups of related females that are dominant or subordinate to other groups of females. Thus, every female of the “alpha” matriline (all descended from Martha) is dominant to every female of the “beta” metriline (all descendents of Elizabeth).

antagonistic of hostile behavior

escalation of agonistic competition into a fight.

just what it says.

– individuals compete aggressively and often hostilely for access to mates, resources, etc.

– individuals displace each other without fighting. 

: making up after a fight

Two or more individuals who partner up to fight another. However, after the one male is defeated, usually the two other males end up fighting each other.

: two males gang up on another. When he is defeated, the two males turn on each other.

related females stick together and help each other in fights. Permanent bond, usually associated with matrilineal dominance hierarchies.

the basic primate social relationship

                        -basic for all social groups

: the basic part of a territory that a group will actively defend from other groups.

earliest primates 

: group composed of primates, bats, flying lemurs, and tree shrews.

earliest primate-like things from the Paleocene. Many are too derived to be ancestral to primates. Earliest ones have teeth that are strongly indicative that they share a common ancestor with primates.

early tarsier-like primates

: thought by some to have give rise to anthropoids (a minority viewpoint).

southeast Asian fossils that were thought to have given rise to anthropoids, but are no known to be specialized adapids.

: likely sister group or ancestral group to anthropoids.

The defining eosimiid from China.

Three Hypotheses (about which group anthropoids came from):

-up until recently debate centered on whether anthropoids arose from omonyids or adapids. Nowadays evidence seems to suggest that adapids are the sister group of living strepsirrhines, omomyids are the sister group of anthropoids which gave rise to tarsiers (this would make omomyids “stem haplorhines”), and eosimiids are the earliest known anthropoids.