Читать книгу Anthropology For Dummies - Cameron M. Smith - Страница 83

Insectivores eat a diet heavy in insects; this is where the primates began: as small early mammals eating small insects. Today, many primates eat a few insects — like the chimpanzees who fish termites out of their mounds by using twigs — but few focus their diet on insects, and even those who do still eat other foods such as tree gum and leaves. But for mouse lemurs and some other prosimians, insects may compose close to half the diet. The characteristics of these insectivores include

 Generally very small size, normally under 100 grams (¼ pound)

 A nocturnal lifestyle

 Sharp teeth for processing insect bodies

 An arboreal lifestyle

 A short and simple digestive tract

The insectivorous primates include the African bush baby or galago, a prosimian that also eats tree gum. It has enormous ears and, unlike most primates, uses these rather than vision to locate its food sources. Weighing up to 5 kilograms (about 10 pounds), the bush baby can leap as far as 4 meters (12 feet) at a time.