Portal:Primates
The Primates Portal A primate is a member of the biological order Primates, the group that contains lemurs, the aye-aye, lorisids, galagos, tarsiers, monkeys, and apes, with the last category including great apes. With the exception of humans, who inhabit every continent on Earth, most primates live in tropical or subtropical regions of the Americas, Africa and Asia. Primates range in size from the 30-gram (1 oz) pygmy mouse lemur to the 200-kilogram (440 lb) mountain gorilla. According to fossil evidence, the primitive ancestors of primates may have existed in the late Cretaceous period around 65 mya (million years ago), and the oldest known primate is the Late Paleocene Plesiadapis, c. 55–58 mya. Molecular clock studies suggest that the primate branch may be even older, originating in the mid-Cretaceous period around 85 mya. Primates exhibit a wide range of characteristics. Some primates do not live primarily in trees, but all species possess adaptations for climbing trees. Locomotion techniques used include leaping from tree to tree, walking on two or four limbs, knuckle-walking, and swinging between branches of trees (known as brachiation). Primates are characterized by their large brains relative to other mammals. These features are most significant in monkeys and apes, and noticeably less so in lorises and lemurs. Many species are sexually dimorphic, which means males and females have different physical traits, including body mass, canine tooth size, and coloration.
Selected article
Chimpanzees are members of the Hominidae family, along with gorillas, humans, and orangutans. Chimpanzees split from human evolution about 6 million years ago and thus the two chimpanzee species are the closest living relatives to humans, all being members of the Hominini tribe (along with extinct species of Hominina subtribe). Chimpanzees are the only known members of the Panina subtribe. The two Pan species split only about one million years ago. Selected picture A Barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus) by the Upper Rock Nature Reserve in Gibraltar. Although the species is commonly referred to as the "Barbary ape", it is in fact a monkey. The Barbary macaque population in Gibraltar is the last in the whole of the European continent. A popular belief holds that as long as Barbary macaques exist on Gibraltar, the territory will remain under British rule. CategoriesSelected species Extinct (IUCN 3.1)|Extinct ? Nycticebus linglom is a fossil primate from the Miocene of Thailand. Known only from a single tooth, an upper third molar, it is thought to be related to the living slow lorises (genus Nycticebus), but the material is not sufficient to assign the species to Nycticebus with certainty, and the species name therefore uses open nomenclature. With a width of 1.82 mm, this tooth is very small for a primate. It is triangular in shape, supported by a single root, and shows three main cusps, in addition to various crests. The absence of a fourth cusp, the hypocone, distinguishes it from various other prosimian primates. Did you know?
Primate lists
WikiProjectsThings to do
Associated WikimediaDiscover Wikipedia using portals |
