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fandomhigh2011-01-13 08:16 am
bootlessjane.livejournal.com) wrote in fandomhigh2011-01-13 08:16 am
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Primatology; Thursday, Fourth Period [ 01/13 ].
Jane was as eager as last week, but she was trying particularly hard to keep it constrained this time, giving a sharp little rap of her pointer on the front desk for attention and pulling herself up very primly. This composure, it should be noted, would last approximately one minute. "Welcome back, class!" she said. "Now, I know it's probably a troublesome sign to start out with an apology, but I would like to do just that. I was so caught up in last week's activity of grunting at each other that I realized I'd completely forgotten to catch your names! You did very well, of course, which would be all well and good if we were Papio anubis, but not so much since we are Homo sapiens! So after today's lecture, we're going to have a little class activity to make up for that, but for now, let's talk first and foremost about classification and taxonomy of Primates."
Best to get comfortable now, children. There was a long ride ahead of you.
"The biological order of mammals that we call Primates, which which we are concerned in this class, is the group that contains prosimians, such as lumurs, lorises, and tarsiers, and Simians, such as monkeys and apes."
Jane had already turned to the blackboard and began to write the information down in a useful shorthand. Later, there would also be pictures and diagrams as well.
"We will be mostly concerned with Simians in this particular class. Most primates can be found in the tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas, Africa and Asia. Primates range in size, the smallest of which is the Madame Berthe's Mouse Lemur, which weighs only 30 grams, if you can believe it, to the Mountain Gorilla, weighing up to a whopping 200 kilograms! Primates have been around for a very, very long time, where they have developed and changed, created their very own versions of civilisations and social structures, all of which we will be learning of in this class. Today, however, we must try our best to restrict ourselves to just the very basics of classifying them."
"Because the classification of primates covers a very wide range of animals, the characteristics can vary greatly. Prosimians tend to resemble the earliest of primates, and anything that is not a monkey or ape typically falls into that category. Not all primates live in trees, but all primates have adapted to possess tree climbing abilities. We call these arboreal habits, and...."
And on and on and on. Jane, far too excited for this sort of thing, went about jotting down all the key points and drawing little diagrams, as she covered a variety of different features that primates possess, including quite the breakdown of the different orders and suborders, from Lemuriformes to Hominidae. She seemed to have a little vignette or side-story to go along with each one, as well.
And she kept going, delving into all the differences between all the little apes and monkeys and lemurs until she finally ran out of room on the board and noted her last sentence with a period in the far lower right hand corner of the board. "Well!" she said, looking at the informative scribblings proudly and absentmindedly wiping the chalk from her hands on her dress as she turned around. "Hardly enough to start with, but you are all beginners, so that should do nicely. Are there any questions? Hopefully, you can look this information over in your studying and understand how and where to classify a variety of primates."
"In fact, we're going to get some practise in today! Remember how I said I had a little activity for us? Well, in this stack of cards, I have a list of characteristics of a primate. I'd like each of you to come up and get one, and I will pull down the projector screen and show you an image of a primate. Look it over, read over your cards, and if you have the right primate, raise your hand and tell the class what the primate is and its characteristics. But first, give us your name and a few characteristics about yourself! So we'll learn about primates and each other, all at once!"
"So who would like to go first?"
Assuming any of them were still awake.
[[ OCDon the way is up! Have at it! ]]
[[ Previous Classes ]]
Best to get comfortable now, children. There was a long ride ahead of you.
"The biological order of mammals that we call Primates, which which we are concerned in this class, is the group that contains prosimians, such as lumurs, lorises, and tarsiers, and Simians, such as monkeys and apes."
Jane had already turned to the blackboard and began to write the information down in a useful shorthand. Later, there would also be pictures and diagrams as well.
"We will be mostly concerned with Simians in this particular class. Most primates can be found in the tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas, Africa and Asia. Primates range in size, the smallest of which is the Madame Berthe's Mouse Lemur, which weighs only 30 grams, if you can believe it, to the Mountain Gorilla, weighing up to a whopping 200 kilograms! Primates have been around for a very, very long time, where they have developed and changed, created their very own versions of civilisations and social structures, all of which we will be learning of in this class. Today, however, we must try our best to restrict ourselves to just the very basics of classifying them."
"Because the classification of primates covers a very wide range of animals, the characteristics can vary greatly. Prosimians tend to resemble the earliest of primates, and anything that is not a monkey or ape typically falls into that category. Not all primates live in trees, but all primates have adapted to possess tree climbing abilities. We call these arboreal habits, and...."
And on and on and on. Jane, far too excited for this sort of thing, went about jotting down all the key points and drawing little diagrams, as she covered a variety of different features that primates possess, including quite the breakdown of the different orders and suborders, from Lemuriformes to Hominidae. She seemed to have a little vignette or side-story to go along with each one, as well.
And she kept going, delving into all the differences between all the little apes and monkeys and lemurs until she finally ran out of room on the board and noted her last sentence with a period in the far lower right hand corner of the board. "Well!" she said, looking at the informative scribblings proudly and absentmindedly wiping the chalk from her hands on her dress as she turned around. "Hardly enough to start with, but you are all beginners, so that should do nicely. Are there any questions? Hopefully, you can look this information over in your studying and understand how and where to classify a variety of primates."
"In fact, we're going to get some practise in today! Remember how I said I had a little activity for us? Well, in this stack of cards, I have a list of characteristics of a primate. I'd like each of you to come up and get one, and I will pull down the projector screen and show you an image of a primate. Look it over, read over your cards, and if you have the right primate, raise your hand and tell the class what the primate is and its characteristics. But first, give us your name and a few characteristics about yourself! So we'll learn about primates and each other, all at once!"
"So who would like to go first?"
Assuming any of them were still awake.
[[ OCD
[[ Previous Classes ]]