Premium
New views on primate origins
Author(s) -
Cartmill Matt
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
evolutionary anthropology: issues, news, and reviews
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.401
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1520-6505
pISSN - 1060-1538
DOI - 10.1002/evan.1360010308
Subject(s) - arboreal locomotion , primate , foraging , non human , biology , ecology , bipedalism , evolutionary biology , zoology , epistemology , paleontology , philosophy , habitat
Most primates live in trees, and many of them have strikingly human‐like hands and faces. Scientists who study primate evolution agree that these two facts must be connected in some way. The details, however, are a matter of debate. Early theories explained the human‐like peculiarities of primates simply as arboreal adaptations. More recent accounts have traced the origins of these peculiarities to more specific ways of arboreal life, involving leaping locomotion, shrub‐layer foraging, visually guided predation on insects, or fruit‐eating.