Ch. 6 Flashcards
Members of the primate infraorder Anthropodea, which includes monkeys, apes, and humans.
Anthropoids
Members of the mammalian order Primates, which include lemurs, lorises, tarsiers, monkeys, apes, and humans.
Primates
The form (shape, size) of anatomical structures; can also refer to the entire organism.
Morphology
Having a diet consisting of many food types, such as plant materials, meat, and insects.
Omnivorous
Active during the day.
Diurnal
The sense of smell.
Olfaction
Active during the night.
Nocturnal
The condition whereby visual images are, to varying degrees, superimposed. This provides for depth perception, or viewing the external environment in three dimensions. Stereoscopic vision is partly a function of structures in the brain.
Stereoscopic vision
Vision characterized by overlapping visual fields provided by forward-facing eyes. Binocular vision is essential to depth perception.
Binocular vision
One of the two halves of the cerebrum, which are connected by a dense mass if fibers. (The cerebrum is the large rounded outer portion of the brain.)
Hemisphere
The more recently evolved portions of the cortex (outer layer) of the brain that are involved with higher mental functions and composed of areas that integrate incoming information from different sensory organs.
Neocortex
Different forms of sensation (e.g., touch, pain, pressure, heat, cold, vision, taste, hearing, and smell).
Sensory modalities
Tree living; adapted to life in the trees.
Arboreal
An organism’s entire way of life: where it lives, what it eats, how it gets food, how it avoids predators, and so on.
Adaptive niche
Numerical device that indicates the number of each type of tooth in each side of the upper and lower jaws.
Dental formula
The bumps on the chewing surface of premolars and molars.
Cusps
Using all four limbs to support the body during locomotion; the basic mammalian (and primate) form of locomotion.
Quadrupedal
Arm swinging, a form of locomotion used by some primates. Brachiation involves hanging from a branch and moving by alternately swinging from one arm to the other.
Brachiation
(strep’-sir-in-ee) The primate suborder that includes lemurs and lorises. (Colloquial form: strepsirhine.)
Strepsirhini
(hap’-lo-rin-ee) The primate suborder that includes tarsiers, monkeys, apes, and humans. (Colloquial form: haplorhine.)
Haplorhini
(rine-air’-ee-um) The moist, hairless pad at the end of the nose seen in most mammalian species. The rhinarium enhances an animal’s ability to smell.
Rhinarium
The taxonomic family that includes all Old World monkeys.
Cercopithecidae
Common name for members of the subfamily of Old World monkeys that includes baboons, macaques, and guenons.
Cercopithecines
Common name for members of the subfamily of Old World monkeys that includes the African colobus monkeys and Asian langurs.
Colobines
Differences in physical characteristics between males and females of the same species. For example, humans are slightly sexually dimorphic for body size, with males being taller, on average, than females of the same population. Sexual dimorphism is very pronounced in many species, such as gorillas.
Sexual dimorphism
Members of the primate superfamily (Hominoidea), which includes apes and humans.
Hominoids
Pertaining to the protection of all or part of the area occupied by an animal or group of animals. Territorial behaviors range from scent marking to outright attacks on intruders.
Territorial
Having a diet composed primarily of fruits.
Frugivorous
The group in which animals are born and raised. (Natal pertains to birth.)
Natal group
Mental capacity; ability to learn, reason, or comprehend and interpret information, facts, relationships, and meanings; the capacity to solve problems, whether through the application of previously acquired knowledge or through insight.
Intelligence
