Читать книгу Anthropology For Dummies - Cameron M. Smith - Страница 70
The Wildest Family Reunion: Meet the Primates
ОглавлениеIN THIS CHAPTER
Discovering when and where the primates first evolved
Distinguishing the characteristics of different primate groups
Understanding the various aspects of primate behavior
Saving endangered primates before it’s too late
There are millions of kinds of living things (some estimate that millions more are undiscovered in the jungles and oceans), and making sense of them has been the labor biologists for centuries. (Check out the “Biological classification” sidebar in this chapter for more on this process.) Among these swimming, hopping, and crawling life forms are the primates, a group of about 200 kinds of animal that share some distinctive anatomical and behavioral characteristics. This is the Primate order, our home in the biological world.
To better understand the human species, anthropology has taken up the study of our closest relatives: Where do they come from? How long have they been living there? Why do they eat the things they eat? This chapter gives you an overview of what that family is like and how you fit in.