Читать книгу Anthropology For Dummies - Cameron M. Smith - Страница 81

The previous sections give you a good idea of the origins and main groups of the primates; now take a look at some details or characteristics that can help to clarify where humanity fits in as one of many primate species. I begin with subsistence in this section; later sections cover locomotion, social groups, and behavior.

Subsistence refers to how an organism fulfills its need for food, water, and nutrients. All kinds of subsistence have evolved in nature, including carnivory (eating prey animals) and herbivory (eating plant matter). Most primates basically practice omnivory, meaning that they eat wide variety of foods.

Many anthropologists today believe that the most important factor driving the diversity of subsistence behavior in primates is food availability and distribution; that is, what’s the distribution of food in space, and how does that distribution vary with time? Because, like any species, primates have to eat, the extent to which their foods are available from season to season has important effects on their behavior and anatomy. Some common primate responses to seasonal changes in diet include switching to different food sources, increasing the time spent in search of food, and splitting the social group to spread out the resource demand. For example, studies show that in lean times, spectral tarsiers (tiny, giant-eyed, super-cute Southeast Asian primates) spend more time traveling in search of food than they do in better times. This change affects all kinds of behavior, including conflict resulting from territorial disputes.

The following sections take a closer look at the actual diets processed by primates.