2.4: Taxonomy of the Living Primates
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There are over 200 species and 600+ subspecies of primates living today. They vary in size from the tiny mouse lemur, weighing in at a whopping two ounces to the male silverback gorilla who can weigh up to 400 pounds. Some are vegetarian while others are omnivores. Many live in tropical areas, but there is at least one species that lives in a temperate region where it snows. Some live exclusively in trees and others live exclusively on the ground. The diversity of primates is expressed in the classification system.
The traditional classification approach put the primates into two suborders: Prosimii and Anthropoidea. The Prosimii contained lemurs, lorises, and tarsiers while anthropoidea consisted of monkeys and apes. The traditional classification approach used levels of taxonomic complexity to determine which suborder a primate should belong.
Most primatologists today use an approach that uses ancestral-descendent relationships to determine the suborder. In this biochemical evolutionary classification approach, there are also two suborders, but they are called Strepsirhini , which includes lemurs, aye ayes, galagos, and lorises, and Haplorhini , which includes tarsiers, monkeys, apes, and humans.
Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\) - Strepsirhini classification
Strepsirhini, which means "twist-nose," characteristics include:
Most Strepsirhines are nocturnal and arboreal and have specialized features, such as large eyes with a light reflecting disk, to help with night vision. They were the first suborder of primates to evolve (O'Neil 1998-2012) and are sometimes referred to as the "lower primates."
Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\) - Abbreviated Haplorhini classification
Haplorhini, which means "simple nose," characteristics include: