Life Science Human Origins

Mammals are animals, vertebrates, tetrapods, amniotes

Mammals have hair, mammary glands, warm- blooded, heterodonty(different teeth), body plam, limbs under body

Mammals comes in three main groups

monotremes, marsupials, placental mammals

Marsupials and placental mammals are more closely related to each other than either is to monotremes

Primates’ closest living relatives are

colugos and tree shrews

that shared group(primates-colugos-tree shrews) is closely related to

rodents and rabbits

Convergence occurs among mammals

Primates and their close relatives

Convergence in mammals

Evolutionary convergence between marsupial and placental mammals (aka homoplasy)

Evolutionary convergence within placental mammals

What is a Primate? Two sub orders of Primate?

• Strepsirhini (strepsirhines)(lemurs and lorises)

• Haplorhini (haplorhines)(tarsiers, monkeys, apes. and humans)

  

List of primate adaptations

• Primates: nails; grasping hands and feet, 1st digit opposability; convergent orbits(stereoscopic vision), postorbital bar; reduced snout and olfactory bulb; increase in overall brain size

• Lemur & lorises (streps) retain grooming claw, tapetum lucidum (eye shine); derived:tooth comb

• Tarsiers and anthropoids (haps): increased postorbital closure()