What Makes A Primate Essay Research Paper

The animals that were perhaps the most interesting to observe were those belonging to the superfamily Hominoidea. This should not come as much of a surprise seeing that the superfamily Hominoidea also contains humans as well as chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas. The first thing I noticed about the orangutans was the amount of sexual dimorphism. There was a large male in the group of orangutans that was at least fifty percent larger than its female counterparts. I was not able to discern much about the orangutans social system in such a short period of time but I can say that a social system did exist between them. The gorillas struck me as probably the most socially oriented primate I had witnessed. On infant gorilla knuckle walked up to the glass wall separating it from its human observers and playfully slapped its palms on the glass. Could it be that it did this as a means of getting attention, as do human children? One other interesting fact that must be noted about the gorillas is that they are not arboreal creatures. The chimpanzees had many of the characteristics that the gorillas possessed with a few differences. The chimps were smaller, had different skin coloration and struck me as less intelligent than the gorillas. There was something about the orangutans, gorillas and apes that I saw as human like. It seemed like behind their eyes that maybe they had some of the same thoughts and feelings as humans. These animals seemed so far removed from the Colobus Monkeys and Lemurs I had seen earlier. What is it that makes them the same?

Despite their more obvious differences all these animals possessed certain less obvious similarities. They were all primarily arboreal creatures. That is they all lived in or around trees. They all inhabited warm climates. A social system is also a ?trademark? of primates although the primate order contains animals with a wide spectrum of social behavior and complexity. It also seems that primates possess an intelligence and dexterity that sets them apart from other animals. Their sense of sight is also more important to them than that of other animals not classified as primates. Another primate ?trademark? is increased parental care. Primate infants develop more slowly and require more aggressive nursing. Hands tailored for grasping are also a characteristic of primates. There is no easy one-sentence definition of what a primate is. All of these things are what make a primate a primate.