Primatology - adaptations + diversity

Characteristics that improve an organism's chances for survival and/or reproduction
Passed down through subsequent generations
Maintained through evolution and selection

Abiotic environment - climate, habitat
Biotic environment - food, predators, disease, other species, conspecifics (attraction/competition)

Animal/plant belonging to the same species

Natural selection
Sexual selection
Genetic drift

Limbs - habitat
Teeth - diet
Senses and the brain - food, sociality, diurnal life
Life history - developmental and energetic constraints

Evolved separately, rather than being passed down from 1 common ancestor

Identification of correlated factors
Build evolutionary theories
Infer selective processes
Infer events of convergent evolution

Present in common ancestor

Homoplasy
Present in some species
Result of convergent evolution

Hands - high prehensility, opposable thumb, nails instead of claws, tactile pads with enriched sensory nerves of digit tips
Feet - high prehensility, divergent and partially opposable big toe
Clavicle - mobile arms and shoulders

Clinging and leaping
Quadrupedalism
Brachiation - hangers
Bipedalism

Omnivores - lack of specialisation (baboons, chimps)
Frugivores - fruit (cercopithecines)
Folivores - leaves, grass (gorillas)
Insectivores - arthropods (some prosimians)

Correspondence/similarity in form/function between parts of different species/lineage that is not attributable to common ancestry but is the result of of parallel/convergent evolution in similar environments/ecological niches - Merriam Webster

Differences between males and females

Some male primates have larger canines
Common in male-male competition

Line = average
Anything above / below deviates from expected
Eg. brain weight larger than expected in relation to body size in chimps

Rely on vision > olfaction - reduction of olfactory apparatus (short snouts), redced olfactory brain structures
Colour vision
Stereoscopic vision - allows primates to thrive in trees
Forward facing eyes

Ability of visual brain to register a sense of 3D and form from visual inputs
Often refers to sense of depth derived from 2 eyes

Timing and pace of major life events

Gestation
Birth
Growth
Maturation
Reproduction
Senescence (process of deterioration with age)
Death

Below allometric line
Slower reproductive rates than expected for body size

Slow
Large brains -> slow maturation -> slow life history

Long life expectancy
Slow reproductive rates
Low fertility
Low mortality

Intense parental care
Great dependence on flexible learned behaviour
Live in social groups
Mostly diurnal
Stable groups
Long-term relationships
Cooperation
Overlapping generations
Social learning, culture

Description, identificantion, nomenclature (picking names for things) and classification of organisms

Biological barrier between individuals - cannot reproduce and produce fertile offpsring
Geographical barrier between individuals

Small
Rely ^^^ on smell
Eat insects and fruit
Mostly solitary
Mostly nocturnal
Home-range: male > female

Lemurs

Variable size and social systems
Dichromatic vision
Mostly diurnal

Capuchins

Variable size and social systems
Group living
Hierarchal dominance
Female philopatry
Sexual dimorphism
Strictly diurnal

Cercopithecines: frugivores/omnivores, cheek pouches, multi-male multi-female groups, female sexual swellings
Colobines: folivores, harem systems, infanticide common

No tail strictly diurnal

Gibbons
Siamands

No tail strictly diurnal

Orang-utans:
Semi-solitary
Long dependency period
Chimps:
Multi-male multi-female
Female dispersal
Male-dominance