A LIFE IN THE TREES

Focus on the following points in this video that will be covered on the exam:


  1. The video illustrates several prosimians (lemurs, sifakas, indris). What is their place in the taxonomic system? What characteristics do the share/not share with other primates? Pay attention to olfactory characteristics, presence or absence of territoriality, and morphology of the hands.

  2. Several monkeys (howlers, baboons, macaques, etc.) are shown. Note how they use vocal and visual capabilities. Pay attention to their geographic range (are they all tropical forest dwellers, for example?). Note their capacities for instinctual or learned behavior (is their any evidence for transmission of knowledge?).
  3. For the apes (gibbons, orangs, gorillas, chimps) depicted in the video, pay attention to how they move around and which locomotor pattern each uses. Where do they spend the majority of their time, on the ground, or in the trees? How are submission and dominance expressed?