![]() Hylobatids, orangutans, Pan species, gorillas and the New World atelines may have each evolved suspensory behavior independently in response to local competition from an expanding population of monkeys. Early depletion of unripe fruit in the central core of the tree canopy by monkeys leaves a hollow sphere of ripening fruits, displacing antifeedant‐intolerant, later‐arriving apes to small‐diameter, compliant terminal branches. Evolutionary trends in morphology and inferred ecology suggest that as monkeys evolved to harvest fruit ever earlier in the fruiting cycle they broadened their niche to encompass first more fibrous, tannin‐ and toxin‐rich unripe fruits and later, for some lineages, mature leaves. It may be that larger body masses allow great apes to succeed in contest competitions for highly desired food items, while the ability of monkeys to digest antifeedant‐rich unripe fruits allows them to win scramble competitions. Diet differences among extant species, extant species numbers and evidence of cercopithecoid diversification and expansion, in concert with a reciprocal decrease in hominoid species, suggest intense competition between monkeys and apes over the last 20 Ma. postures with eccentric limb orientations or extreme joint excursions). Precarious, unpredictably oriented, compliant supports in the canopy periphery require apes to maneuver using suspensory and non‐sterotypical postures (i.e. The timing of paleontological events, extant cercopithecine and hominoid ecomorphology and other evidence suggests that many distinctive ape features evolved to facilitate harvesting ripe fruits among compliant terminal branches in tree edges. Are you a teacher, parent, or curious grown-up? Follow along on Twitter or Facebook.Apes, members of the superfamily Hominoidea, possess a distinctive suite of anatomical and behavioral characters which appear to have evolved relatively late and relatively independently.Students can submit science questions on the ASK page. Universe connects K-8 students with researchers at Washington State University through Q&A. Whether primates are swinging, jumping, running, skipping, knuckle-walking or walking upright, every species knows just the right way to get from one place to the next. Just imagine how far you could jump with legs like a pygmy tarsier. A pygmy tarsier’s legs are so powerful they allow it to jump ten times its own body length. Their ankle bones are long and help them propel from tree to tree. Instead of having really long arms, the pygmy tarsiers have really long legs. ![]() It’s about the size of a tiny guinea pig. One of the primates that doesn’t use its knuckles is the pygmy tarsier. “It’s probably not a midway point between swinging in trees and walking on two legs. Some people don’t really think that anymore,” Grow said. “In the past, people thought that humans walked on their knuckles. This question created a lot of debate among scientists-and sometimes it still does. “They have these long arms that still help them move around in trees, but now they’re spending more time on the ground.”įor a long time, people thought early humans might have walked on their knuckles as well. “They carry that with them from an ancestor in the past,” Grow said. But as you now know, they also use their knuckles when they are on the ground. Nanda Grow, an anthropologist and wildlife biologist, out in the field.Ĭhimpanzees also have long arms that they use for climbing in trees. But their long arms come in really useful when they swing around the forest. They don’t use their knuckles for walking. ![]() Gibbons have really long arms that drag around on the ground. Apes such as gibbons spend a lot of time in trees. ![]() Of course, the environment where apes live can also shape how they get around. When they get up on their knuckles, it shortens up the front legs a bit and provides some extra balance. When gorillas walk on their knuckles, it can help them spread out their weight and protects their joints.Īpes also tend to have front legs that are longer than their back legs. Grow told me the average male gorilla is about 400 pounds. But for apes, knuckle-walking is one way to help them move their weight around. If you walked around on your knuckles, you might get tired, sore or wobbly. Meanwhile, gorillas keep their arms straighter. “Gorillas and chimpanzees both do knuckle walking, but they do different kinds,” she said.Īs chimpanzees and bonobos walk around, they will extend their arms, flatten out their hands a bit and curl in the knuckle. That’s what I found out from my friend Nanda Grow, an anthropologist and wildlife biologist at Washington State University who studies primates. Gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos use their knuckles for stability and balance. ![]()
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