Comprehensive Study Notes on Superfamily Lorisoideia and Strepsorini Primates

Moving forward in the course, exam evaluations shift from individual species-specific questions, nonvascular topics, and evolutionary history to broader taxonomic categories.
Exams focus on testing knowledge regarding characteristics of specific hardwaters, super families, or suborders of primates, specifically:
- Strepsorini (also referred to as strepsirrhines or stress hormones)
- Catarrhymes
- Platyrhymes

Superfamily Lorisoideia (also referenced as Lorisoidae or lorisoidia) is a major superfamily within the suborder Strepsorini.
Lorisoideia contains lineages historically referred to as procythian primates.
Context on the term "procythian" (and its equivalent "prosimian"):
- The term is largely out of fashion among researchers studying living extant primates, though it is still occasionally used in paleontology (paleo).
- The root/base of the word means "pre ape."
- It carries the false implication that procythians/prosimians are less advanced or less evolved than apes.
- Broadly, prosimian refers generally to any of the Strepsorini primates.

Superfamily Lorisoideia consists of three main groups of living primates:
- Lorises
- Pottos
- Galagos (commonly known as bush babies)
Lorises and Pottos Taxonomic Breakdown:
- Extant genera: $4$
- Species: Approximately $12$
- Taxa (including subspecies series): $18$
- Geographic Distribution: Distributed across Africa and Asia.
Galagos / Bush Babies Taxonomic Breakdown:
- Genera: $6$
- Species: Approximately $18$
- Taxa: $34$
- Geographic Distribution: Found exclusively in Africa (specifically limited to parts of Sub Saharan Africa).
Taxonomic Status and Research Landscape:
- New genera and species are still actively being discovered and described within this superfamily.
- Superfamily Lorisoideia represents the least well studied, least well known, and least taxonomically resolved group among all living primates.
Morphological Uniformity vs. Lemur Diversity:
- Unlike lemurs—which exhibit wide morphological diversity ranging from tiny nocturnal mouse lemurs fitting in the palm of a hand to large $25\,lb$ animals like the injury that sweep around looking like a bucket—Lorisoideia displays very low inter-taxa diversity.
- Members of Lorisoideia are essentially all small, nocturnal, mouse-lemur-like animals.

Geographic Range: Restricted to parts of Sub Saharan Africa.
Body Mass Range: Small body mass ranging from $80\,g$ to $1500\,g$
Dietary Patterns:
- Their small body mass directly indicates a primary reliance on animal prey, including insects and invertebrates, as the main portion of their diet.
- Smaller primates characteristically depend more heavily on animal proteins to satisfy metabolic demands.
Social System:
- Exhibit a no yo social pattern (also described as an annoyosocial system).
- Females control small individual territories, while males rove or roam over the overlapping territories of multiple females.
Activity Pattern: Strictly nocturnal across the entire superfamily.
Locomotion:
- Locomotor strategy is vertical clinging and leaping.
- Represents a small-scale version of the vertical clinging and leaping performed by larger primates such as the injury and sheep box.

Research and Study State:
- Lorises, gallopers, and morasses are heavily overlooked in primatology.
- A prominent researcher studying this group is Anna McKarris, based at a university in The UK, who has dedicated her career to studying lorises, specifically the slow loris. Almost no other researchers study these primates.
Behavioral and Ecological Traits:
- Lorises display traits virtually identical to galagos.
- Social System: No yo social / annoyosocial pattern.
- Activity Pattern: Strictly nocturnal.
- Dietary Pattern: Primarily insectivorous/faunivorous, relying mainly on animal protein, eating high quantities of insects and other small prey.