Chapter 6: Biology in the Present: The Other Living Primates Flashcards
(42 cards)
Arboreal Adaptation
traits enabling organisms to live in trees (mammals).
Dietary Plasticity
flexible diet adapting to different habitats, very adaptable, eat all kinds of food sources
Parental Investment
parents expend a lot of time and energy on their offspring
Sir Wilfrid E. Le Gros Clark
1895-1971, defined the 3 characteristics of primates
Opposable thumb
thumb can meet finger tips
Power Grip
fishlike grip with thumbs and fingers wrapping around an object in opposite directions
Precision Grip
precise grappling between thumb and fingers
Pre-adaptation of Spine
Allows bipedalism
Dermal Ridges
very sensitive and tactile parts of finger like finger prints, allowing traction
postorbital closure
enables converged depth of filed vision
Diurnal and color vision
play hand in hand for primates who work during the day and are able to detect toxic and ripe food/fruit
Rhinarium
external wet nose
Dental Formula and Types
Incisors, canines, premolars, molars, order by #.#.#.# with each number corresponding to amount of those type of teeth
Loph
enamel ridge connecting cusps on tooth
Bilophodont
2 ridges in lower molars in OW monkeys
Y-5
pattern of lower molar cusps
Tooth comb
forward leaning anterior incisors/canines, specialized for grooming and bark diet in strepsirrhines (lemurs)
Canine molar honing complex
upper canine sharpened against 3rd premolar, present in OW monkeys and apes, absent in humans
Diastema
space between lower canine and lower 3rd molar, accommodates upper canine (absent in humans)
Sectorial Premolar
lower 3rd premolars single dominant cusp with sharp cutting edge (sectorial), more pronounced in males (competition)
Phylogenic/cladistic: Clade
branch of group of organisms with common ancestors (nested hierarchy of evolutionary relationships)
Traditional/Gradistic: Grade
group sthought to share same levels of complexity and evolution
Derived characteristics
present only in a few or one species, implying derivation, limited within a particular clade, more distal in a tree
Primitive/ ancestral characteristics
found across multiple species of a group, indication ancestrality- more basal in a tree