Portal:Primates
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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
Indraloris is a fossil primate from the Miocene of India and Pakistan in the family Sivaladapidae. Two species are now recognized: I. himalayensis from Haritalyangar, India (about 9 million years old) and I. kamlialensis from the Potwar Plateau, Pakistan (15.2 million years old). Body mass estimates range from about 2 kg (4.4 lb) for the smaller I. kamlialensis to over 4 kg (8.8 lb) for the larger I. himalayensis.
Indraloris is known from isolated teeth and fragmentary lower jaws. Indraloris may have been arboreal and at least partly frugivorous. When the first Indraloris fossils were discovered in the early 1930s, one was misidentified as a carnivoran and the other as a loris. The carnivoran identification was corrected in 1968, and in 1979 Indraloris and the related Sivaladapis were identified as late survivors of Adapiformes, an archaic primate group.
Selected picture
The ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta) is a large strepsirrhine primate and the most recognized lemur due to its long, black and white ringed tail. It belongs to Lemuridae, one of five lemur families, and is the only member of the Lemur genus. Like all lemurs it is endemic to the island of Madagascar. Known locally in Malagasy as maky (spelled maki in French) or hira, it inhabits gallery forests to spiny scrub in the southern regions of the island. It is omnivorous and the most terrestrial of lemurs. The animal is diurnal, being active exclusively in daylight hours.
Categories
Selected species
Endangered (IUCN 3.1)|Endangered
The Zanzibar red colobus (Procolobus kirkii) is a species of red colobus monkey endemic to Unguja, the main island of the Zanzibar archipelago, off the coast of Tanzania. It is also known as Kirk's red colobus after Sir John Kirk (1832-1922), the British Resident of Zanzibar who first brought it to the attention of zoological science. It is now classified as an endangered species and in the mid-1990s was adopted as the flagship species for conservation in Zanzibar. The population trend is still decreasing and because this species is only located in the archipelago, conservationists are attempting to work with local government to devise a proper, effective strategy to protect the population and habitat. The species has been reclassified twice; it was previously in the genus Colobus , and more recently in the genus Procolobus .
Did you know?
- ... that in addition to insects, the diet of the common brown lemur (pictured) includes soil and red clay?
- ...that the infant red-bellied lemur rides on both mother and father, but after age 33 days, only the father offers transport?
- ... that agile mangabeys are known to contract the T-cell leukemia virus, similar to the leukemia virus that infects humans?
- ... that the birth rates of the southern woolly lemur are affected by the degradation level of their habitat?
- ... that the extinct monkey lemurs, including Hadropithecus , were most closely related to modern indris and sifakas, as well as the extinct sloth lemurs?
- ...that the diademed sifaka is an athletic lemur whose small groups defend a rainforest territory of up to 125 acres by scent marking?
Primate lists
- List of lemur species
- List of Central American monkey species
- List of Costa Rican monkey species
- List of Panamanian monkey species
- List of Neanderthal sites
- List of apes
- List of fictional apes
- List of fictional monkeys
- List of human evolution fossils
- List of monkeys
- List of placental mammals in Order Primates
WikiProjects
Things to do
- Article requests : Article requests
- Cleanup : Ebu Gogo, Primate basal ganglia system, More
- Copyedit : Homo erectus, Multiregional origin of modern humans
- Expand : Ah Meng, Multiregional origin of modern humans, More
- Merge : Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium into Chimpanzee genome project
- Stubs : Giant Aye-aye, Godinotia, Equatorial Saki, Furry-eared Dwarf Lemur, More...
- Wikify : Lapedo child, Smilodectes
- Other : Tag and assess "primate" articles with {{WikiProject Primates}} banner.
Associated Wikimedia
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