Primates and Humans

By: Alyssa A.

Block: C

Date: May 9, 2014

Similarities:

- Social behaviors

- Look like us

- Sense danger

- Make bed out of leaves carefully

- Nomadic

- Eat fruit, nuts, bugs, leaves, and meat

- Hug/pat back (huddle) to reassure

- Scavenges

- Strong family ties

- Use/make tools

- Temper tantrums (teenagers)

- Grieve

- Contract diseases

- Brutal attacks put forth

- Infancide (rarely)

- Cannibalism (rarely)

Differences:

- Tails

- Locomotion

Question: How is your primate and other primates alike/different from us Humans?

Answer:

Primates like the black and white colobus monkey are like us in a way that our social behaviors are the same. In my presentation and on the Jane Goodall video, behaviors are exhibited like mother/infant relationship, family relationship, and social dominance. One specific behavior that really stood out as being very much like us humans was mother/infant relationship. My primate the black and white colobus monkey has a very strong mother/infant relationship, which can be shown using by data from the zoo trip. My focal primate was Jane a young black and white colobus monkey who for 90 percent of the time spent it with her mother. In the Jane Goodall video a mother chimp and her child shared a human like bond and a strong one at that she tells us. Other primates share a strong mother/infant bonds such as the Sumatran Orangutan done by one of my fellow classmates as their primate research project. Along with a strong mother/infant bond primates are also similar to us humans in the sense that they have the ability to make tools and use them too. From learning how to make fire to Apple products humans have been making and using tools since the early ages. Primates also exhibited this behavior even if their tools are not as complex as ours they still have the capability to create them. This is seen being done in Jane Goodalls video when a juvenile male chimp (David) strips a twig of its leaves and sticks it down a termite nest to draw out some termites. Used as a feeding tool other primates also use this technic, it is not only native to the chimps. Black and white colobus monkeys as well as Sumatran orangutans can manipulate this twig to serve its purpose of acquiring a tasty snack.

Even though there are so many ways that primates are alike when compared to humans, there are some differences between humans and primates. One is a physical difference, primates have tails where as humans do not. Chimps and Sumatran orangutans may not have these tails but black and white colobus monkeys do. It really depends on what species of primate you are to determine weather or not you should have a tail. Besides this physical character that really makes primates and humans different, primates are different from humans in the way that we use locomotion. Most primates’ walk around on all fours (quadropedilism), due to mostly equal strength in both arms and legs; they also have the ability to grasp things with not only their hand but their feet as well. Humans however use bidepedilism and we walk only on our legs, for they are much stronger than our arms. Our feet cannot grasp objects like primates do, whether or not we forgot or never were able to we still are not as skilled as them. Chimps, Sumatran orangutans, and black and white colobus monkeys all walk on four legs, swinging and leaping through the trees with all four limbs and both hands and feet aiding them in their movement. That is another example of why humans and primates are not as similar as we think and have our differences with each other.