Primate: Apes And Orangutans

In the article, “Of Primates and Personhood: Will According Rights and ´Dignity´ to Nonhuman Organisms Halt Research?¨, written by Ed Yong, who explains the moral but unclear delma of granting Great Apes rights. Extending from Spain to the U.S., the Great Ape Project (GAP) fights for these basic sets of moral and legal rights for apes. The problem is that apes, although genetically similar to humans are still viewed as simple animals. Which makes the ability to give these non-human animals, human like rights unnecessary as it would to give rights to dogs or rats. The U.S. has also passes the Great Ape Protection Act, which stop any harmful experience to apes. Consequently also stopping any further understanding of underlying biological mechanisms,

A few weeks ago, I spent a lovely Monday afternoon observing two different primates at the Santa Ana Zoo. I got to the zoo around two in the afternoon, and to my surprise, the zoo was decently crowded. The Santa Ana Zoo is smaller in comparison to other zoos like the Los Angeles Zoo, but still had a decent amount of animals there. Covering a small 20 acres of land, I came across two primates that fit perfectly for the purposes of this course project. I chose to observe an endangered ape, the white-handed gibbon, and an endangered new world monkey, the golden-headed lion tamarin.

Primates first evolved from the trees of tropical forests, later to the ground. Through the times of promisians to human, many characteristics has been represented due to the adaptations to new environments and resulted in evolutionary changes. The Earth has encountered several geological and climatic changes over time. For the primates existed at that time had to adjust itself especially in body configurations and locomotion in order to better survive. It is important to be aware of this information since we are the part of occurring changes as well. Throughout the evolution owing to

Orangutan was the primate I decided to select for this primate observation. The monkey was enclosed in a large cage with two other monkeys (same species). It seem to be comfortable and unbothered of its surroundings. The monkey was just sitting observing everything around them, for example us the visitors. These primates are known to be unique thinkers. They are very quiet than other primates, patient, and problem solvers. The staff from the Los Angeles Zoo, provides a variety of enrichment through diet, I noticed a staff giving the monkeys vegetables: carrots, lettuce, and other that I didn’t quite notice. Being able to observe the lives of the Orangutans enclosed in the zoo, are very different

For this assignment, I have decided to design an enclosure about the primate, Mandrill. I will, in words, describe an enclosure that will prevent these nonhuman primates from not being suited to their natural habitat needs. Throughout this assignment, I will design my very own version of a perfect enclosure that secures these primates by critically thinking of any psychological or physical problems that can occur. What also will need to partake is considering the perspective of the nonhuman primates, the zookeepers, and the visitors as well. Designing an enclosure has to be precise and detailed. I will do the best I can to be as detailed as I can be when designing this enclosure.

They are very fast and can be able to run within short distances using the most minimal time. It takes less than 10 seconds to run within a distance of approximately 100 meters. While the animals move around they try to monitor the environment as quadrupedally and monitoring of the environment can be able to take as much as up to ten minutes in any case they have doubts of where they are, this alerts them of any predators. Consortship is a situation where the two animals would stay close to each other and monitor the movement and environment of each other. This is done as long as the animals are out in an environment that is not seen as being friendly. The patas can be seen to be less vocal and they move around in silence, they make certain noise only once when they have seen a predator. The noise or the sound takes just a few seconds as long as the danger is taken away

Non human primates’ social organization can provide useful information how human social evolution occurs. We will go over main points of how similar and different non human primates such as chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas’ society are compared to ours, humans.

Primates have some features that support them for the arboreal life. First, primates have developed grasping extremities with the divergent hallux and nails instead of claws. These features help them grasping branches better. Second, primates have enhanced vision with the optic convergence, which helps them look straightforward. They also have postorbital bar to protect the eyes. Third, primates reduced the olfaction that is not useful for arboreal life. Fourth, comparing to the other mammals, primates have large brain consider to the body size. The large brain helps them to process the complicating reactions, and thinking. Haplorrhines primates have some unique derived traits: the loss of tapetum lucidum, which enhances the vision in the darkness; and haplorhini, which is dry external nose. The anthropoid primates have developed some derived traits. They have postorbital bar with closure, and this makes a complete bony ring surrounds the eyes. They also have fused mandibular symphysis. The Platyrrhines have the dental formula 2.1.3.3/2.1.3.3. The Catarrhines have dental formula 2.1.2.3/2.1.2.3. The Cercopithecoids have the bilophodont molars to enhance the chewing ability. The hominoids are the most developed primates, which have some derived unique traits. They have larger brain, loss of tail, longer arms than legs, broad thorax with more muscles, and highly mobile shoulder.

Climbing, when it comes to the observed non-human primates, is used as a way of exercise as well as encouraging a sense of security and survival. Climbing the trees expends energy in the monkeys, often leaping between branches and trees at whim. Beyond this, climbing allows the monkeys to get adjusted and familiar with their surroundings as well as giving them a decent vantage point to see potential predators or prey. With humans, however, climbing serves other purposes. Humans utilize climbing for a number of reasons that are, in the grand scheme of things, very rarely survival.

Primate life on earth began about 50-55 million years ago during the Eocene Epoch, although it is unknown how many different living species of primates there on earth. One likely fact is that the major groups of primates have been discovered, two of who are the Pongo Orangutan and the Pan Paniscus Bonobo. The word Orangutan translated from Malay means “Person of the forest” this is so because there are only two places you can find an Orangutan’s: Malaysia and Indonesia. The orangutan is an official state animal of Sabah in Malaysia. There are two different types of Orangutan’s; the Bornean Orangutan, which found on the island of Borneo and the Sumatran Orangutan, which is found on the Sumatra Island. Orangutans are known as the world’s largest tree climbing mammals, unlike other primates they spend the majority of their lives on trees. Orangutan habitat consists of primary tropical rain forest and old secondary forest at low elevations. Orangutans prefer high-density climate due to their diet, which consists 65% of fruit. Bonobos have been considered humankind’s closest relative and share 98% of our DNA. Bonobos can only be found in one country: the Democratic Republic of the Congo also known as DRC. Bonobos inhabit the second largest rainforest on earth, the Congo Basin. Bonobos prefer swampy rainforests and similar to the Orangutans, Bonobos are arboreal which are adapted to living on

All primates have hands but not all primates have done as much as humans with this extremity. One of the main reasons why is that we are bipedal. Our secret to sustaining the ability of standing on two feet is our curved

The commonalities between human primates and non-human primates illustrate the similar capabilities of the two species, but the differences show each’s ability to adapt and develop unique characteristics. The hand structure of humans can be compared to that of wild chimpanzees which have similar structure but with a few key differences. Both humans and chimpanzees have a high level of mobility that derives from their hands, and specifically their possession of an opposable thumb (Shelton, 2015). This ancestral trait is one of the reasons for the success of both species, and aids each species individually (Gibbons, 2015). However, there are differences in the hands of both species as well, and these differences dictate the limits of what humans

Chimpanzees use there opposable thumbs just as humans do, this means that their thumbs can hold objects in the position opposite to their attached fingers. One characteristic that chimpanzees do not share with humans are their facial structure. Chimpanzees have prominent eye ridges, flattened nose, a very large jaw, and thin lips. As with humans their facial structure contains small eyebrow ridges, protruding nose, a flattened jaw, and large lips. Chimpanzees share the fingernail trait that many other mammals do not share with humans. For example, most of the other mammals such as big cats, bears, and dogs all have sharp claws at the end of the finger. As with chimpanzees and human share flatter fingernails with a sensitive palmer surface. Another characteristic human and chimpanzees do not have in common is the amount hair their bodies. Humans have a limited proportion of hair covering their skin. One example would be, for human hair it is only more common to grow on certain parts of the body such as, head, armpits, and genitals. As with chimpanzees they have dense hair that covers most of their body except, the face, feet, and the surface of their hands. Finally the last characteristic they share are single pair of mammary glands. As with dogs, cats, and other smaller mammals, they tend to have multiple pairs of mammary glands. But with humans and chimpanzees they share one pair of mammary glands. Another characteristic they do not have in common are the way they walk. As humans are known to stand and walk on two feet, as where the chimpanzee shuffles around on all fours. Humans walk like this, because their legs are longer than their arms and have the ability to straighten the knee. Chimpanzees have longer arms than humans and their knees stay


Humans and non-human primates have many behaviors and characteristics in common. Apes and chimpanzees have been studies and closely watched for many years. Scientist and researchers and found many similarities between the apes and chimpanzees with humans. All three are hard working and work with tools. They also make these tools. Another similarity is the fact that they are very social with others of their breed. This is also true about other primates other than apes and chimpanzees, like lemurs, lorises, pottos, and tarsiers. Apes and chimpanzees are able to learn sign language and elementary math skills. All primates have nails instead of claws on their fingers and toes. Both non-human primates and humans all have opposable thumbs. They use these thumbs to be able to pick up things better and they are thumbs that are able to move and touch other parts of the same hand. Non-human primates, including humans, learn by watching their mothers and other family members. For example, chimpanzees learn to make stick tools to stick into holes to get termites to eat. They do this because the mothers never teach them

Another common misconception is that we evolved from monkeys. Many people think this. Though it seems reasonable, that is not true. We did not evolve from monkeys. “Humans share a common ancestor with modern African apes, like gorillas and chimpanzees”(PBS Article). Our ancestor being the older form of monkeys before evolution. “Scientists believe this common ancestor existed 5 to 8 million years ago”(PBS Article). Though we had the same ancestor scientists think that a portion of them evolved to monkeys, apes, ect., while the other portion evolved to early forms of humans called hominids. Scientists think this because we are closely related to apes but not exactly related. These hominids evolved to humans through many generations, proof has