Why Primates?

Primates are the relatives of Humans as we are a part of the hominoidea branch, and along with this have shared evolutionary history up until 6-7 million years ago when we began to evolve away with the use of bipedalism and brain expansion. 

 

There have been many past areas of study involving primates including behavioral, medical, and genetic researches. Some of these behavioral experiments included the Harlow and Dewaal experiments. 

 

On the research side, Leakey's Angels fostered primatologists from paleoanthropologists. (Goodall = Chimps, Fossey = Gorillas, Galdikas - Orangutans)

Primate Hierarchy

Primate hierarchy primarily refers to the naming of a species in the animal kingdom and uses the groups with groups thought. This seen as you go from species to kingdom, the groups get bigger and more inclusive. Primate Taxonomy can also be based on two ideas, Phylogeny and Cladistics

 

 

When thinking about Phylogeny, it focuses on the genetic/evolutionary relationships among species. The genetic relationships refer to the concept of evolution; "all species are descended from others". On the other hand, Cladistics can be shown through a dendrogram or a cladogram. In a dendrogram, there is a timescale but no features. On the other hand, a cladogram would not have a timescale but would have features shown.