Most lemur’s reside in the tropical rainforests of Madagascar. Madagascar has extreme weather ranging from tropical cyclone floods to extremely dry droughts. This has caused for the Lemur to evolve into a creature that is able to withstand the extreme weather in Madagascar. While some Lemur locomotion can vary from Lemur to Lemur, most are quadrupedal, meaning that they use all four of their limbs to climb or walk. One example of this is the cheirogaleidae, or dwarf lemurs that are quadrupedal and are also climbers. Lemurs can also be vertical clingers and leapers. These specific locomotive patterns may have evolved from using all four limbs to walk long distances or to climb trees, or to swing from tree to tree and to also search for food. Since a lemurs diet mainly consists of fruit, they would need to climb trees to sustain their life.
Spider Monkey:
Spider Monkey’s live in the top layers of the tropical rainforests in Central and South America. They use three different types of locomotion, quadrupedal, suspensory, and bipedalism. Like the Lemur, the Spider Monkey uses quadrupedal while walking, it uses suspensory while climbing, and bipedalism when leaping. Also, like the Lemur, these locomotive traits may have developed as a result of its tropical location among the trees. These three locomotive traits enable the Spider Monkey to survive within the rainforest.
Baboon:
Baboon’s reside in East Africa. Their habitat is easily adaptable and can survive for long periods of time with no water. I had a great deal of trouble trying to find the locomotive patterns of baboons. I did find one source that referred to Baboons as quadrupedal creatures. Baboons live in mostly open areas and often sleep on rocks. This most likely has caused the Baboons to evolve to utilize a trait that could enable them to travel over distances of flat land, in a quadrupedal manner.
Gibbon:
Gibbon’s are a part of the ape family and are found in tropical and sub-tropical rainforests such as China, India and Indonesia. Although their main source of locomotion is through brachiation, or swinging on branches, they also walk bipedally, and occasionally leap. Gibbon’s most likely evolved in tropical rainforests usuing brachiation as their source of travel, and also probably to gather their food, which is essential for survival.
Chimpanzee:
Chimpanzee’s can be found in Africa and Southeast Asia. Unlike the other four explored primates, Chimpanzee’s live in more diverse areas consisting of tropical rainforests, swamps, grasslands, and forests. Chimp’s mostly walk quadrupedally but also walk bipedally. Like the Gibbon, they also travel through brachiation and they are able to climb trees extremely well. These traits developed from the Chimp’s natural habitat. In order for the Chimpanzee’s to survive, they had to develop different forms of locomotion for traveling, resting, shelter, and food.
All of the primates explored in this assignment reside in tropical areas, specifically among the trees (except for the chimpanzee who reside multiple places), except for the Baboon, who takes shelter mostly in open fields. The environment plays a huge role in the development of locomotive traits in these primates. They all require multiple forms of locomotion such as brachiation, quadrupedal, and bipedal. If it were not for their ability to possess these locomotive traits, their survival would be at risk, because it would eliminate some of their ability to travel, and obtain food.
Daryl, I enjoyed reading your post. Your pictures really showed the animals' locomotion and the chimp was the best.I feel like I know a lot more about how these primates move and I appreciate the work you put into this assignment. The chimpanzees get around a lot like we do, don't they? I mean the varied ways they move; bipedal, quadrupedal and brachial. Their versatility reminds me a lot of how we move. I wonder if they swim?
ReplyDeleteNice work.
ReplyDeleteI thinks it interesting how the chimpanzee, gibbon and spider monkey share the common trait to walk bipedally and the Baboon and lemurs share the quadrupedalism trait.
I do see how humans have similar locomotion traits of being able to swing or move brachially and bipedally.
In general, great job!
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to correct one misconception. Except for humans (we're bipedal), ALL primates are quadrupeds. That just means that they use all four limbs for moving around. But within that broad category of locomotion are the more specialized types of locomotion: Clinging and leaping, knuckle-walking, terrestrial quadrupedalism, etc. About the only exception is brachiation, which only uses the forearms, but because gibbons also rely on their hindlimbs at rest, then they are still considered quadrupeds.
I also had problems finding a lot of info on the Baboon. I thought that was interesting becuase it is one of the primates that you hear about more often. I thought the information on them and all about them would have been a lot easier to find. I really liked the information you put up - we had the same assignment pretty much so it was cool to read another persons work on the same subject. Your pictures were totally cute, too.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize there were so many ways that primates move around and it makes sense that they would use whatever method that helped them to reach food or escape from predators. Good post.
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