fandomhigh | Primatology; Thursday, Fourth Period [ 01/13 ].

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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.

[[ OCD ~~on the way~~ is up! Have at it! ]]

[[ Previous Classes ]]

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With class!

Jane does like to talk, it's true, but there's no denying that she's enthusiastic about the subject, and her drawings are really quite good. It's nice that she includes them, because otherwise it would just be a wall of text, and she's so into it that questions are probably best left until afterward.

Jane has passed out random cards, on which the students would find the name and descriptions of the following primates:

     -The Emperor Tamarin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Tamarin)
     -The Common Chimpanzee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Chimpanzee)
     -The Sumatran Orangutan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumatran_Orangutan)
     -The Western Gorilla (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Gorilla)
     -The Spider Monkey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_monkey)
     -The Agile Gibbon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_Gibbon)

If a picture of your primate comes up on the projector, stand up, say your name, a little about yourself if you'd like, and then identify the primate by name and a few of the characteristics on your card.

There's one card for each student, so please do not pick a primate that someone has already identified.

Edited 2011-01-13 14:34 (UTC)

She's most certainly available after class to talk, especially if you'd like to know even more about primates.

No, serious heavy duty apologies for my lack of interaction in last class. It was an evil combination of work holding me over extra, extra long and crazy phone day eating my souuuuuuuuuuul.

I'm glad I can conveniently blame it on Jane's flightiness, though. XD

Calvin

Firekeeper may not have been able to read, but at least she could match picture to picture, so when the projector showed the image of the Western Gorilla, she stood up.

"I am Blysse Norwood," she introduced herself. "He is Blind Seer," she nodded to the very large wolf by her side. "And... I do not read."

Blind Seer's tail twitched impatiently, and Firekeeper added with a sigh: "He know how to read a few word."

Elphaba Thropp

It was truly a testament to the power of Jane's excitement last week when she'd actually just been noticing the wolf for the first time.

"Oh, dear," said Jane, frowning worriedly, not so much at the wolf in her classroom, because he did look quite well behaved, but for the other part of what Blysse had said. "Not at all? Or do you mean you do not read, as in a refusal to read, or you do not read as in you don't know how?"

She glanced a bit worriedly to the scrawled text on the blackboard, knowing perfectly well that she didn't exactly speak at a speed in which most people would have been able to keep up with...

Calvin stood up when the projector showed a picture of a chimp.

"I'm Calvin. The Common Chimpanzee, also known as the Robust Chimpanzee is a great ape," he read off the card. "Jane Goodall was the first person to undertake long term field study if them. Along with the Bonobo, they're the closest-related living species to humans. This means that the occasional human-chimp cross-breeding occurs, however sadly instead of displaying hybrid vigour, the offspring display the worse traits of both parents. They're pretty tall though."

Those last two sentences weren't on the card. But Calvin felt he deserved credit for undertaking long-term field research of Moe.

"Do not know how," Firekeeper shrugged. She'd refused to learn to read, back when she was first made aware of the concept, but now? She'd admitted it would be a useful skill. Which unfortunately didn't make the actual learning any easier.

Jane, considering how she'd written the card, could certainly tell that there had been some extraneous information, and frowned at Calvin with a little bit of confusion.

"I can't say," she said delicately, "I'm quite as familiar with chimpanzee-human hybrids, Calvin... But you are correct, this would be the chimpanzee, our closest primate cousin..."

"Oh, no," said Jane, shaking her head. "No, no, no. That will not do! Reading is very important, especially in school..." She frowned for a moment, in commiseration over poor Blysse's illiterate plight before an idea sparked in her and brought her right back up. "Oh, I have it! Would you like to learn, Blysse? It's a terribly helpful skill to use and, if you'd like, I'll take it upon myself to teach you. That's what I'm here for, after all, isn't it? To teach young minds and build them up to learn fascinating and useful things about the world around them?"

"Others have tried," Firekeeper felt obligated to inform her teacher a little hesitantly.

"So then it would be an absolute shame if I didn't give it a go as well!" Jane said with an invigorating little pump of her fist. "I'm usually in my office on Mondays, Blysse, if you should like to stop by, I'd be more than happy to spend a little section of the day each week in teaching you how to read. It will be incredibly useful to you, in this class and others, I'm sure."

"Elphaba Thropp," Elphaba announced, then began to read off her card. "That is the Agile Gibbon, also known as the Black Handed Gibbon. They reach an average weight of five and a half kilograms, and a length of forty to sixy centimeters."

"Like all gibbons, they have no tail, and eat fruit, leaves, and insects."

Noah Puckerman

Maladicta

"Oh, dear," Jane looked quite sincerely concerned the moment the girl the girl started to talk. "Are you feeling quite all right, Miss Thropp?"

Elphaba raised an eyebrow.

"No," she said, dripping with sarcasm. "I'm quite seasick today."

"How peculiar," Jane said with a thoughtful frown. "Do you need anything? Some water, perhaps? Or maybe just some time to let it pass? Perhaps some seltzer water with ginger? That always helps me in the rare cases when the seas have me feeling a bit...questionable."

Elphaba took a deep breath, remembered she was dealing with a teacher, and exhaled it with a sad, resigned sigh.

"I'm fine," she said, with a bit of restraint. "This is my natural skin tone. I don't have a way to explain it, it's just who I am."

"Your...natural?" Jane blinked a little in surprise, but then leaned forward as if to have a better look at the girl, and turned a little pink herself. "Oh, my, of course. I suppose it does seem a bit silly to think that people actually turn a bit green with seasickness, although they do turn quite yellow with jaundice."

And here was where the scientist kicked in. "Where is it that you're from, Miss Thropp? If you don't mind me saying so, I've never heard of a people with green skin before. It is a rather lovely shade, though, and I assume your home must be quite unexplored, or else I'd have heard about it by now. Is it a common tint? Perhaps it's something in your diet? I've heard that a person could turn orange from too many carrots, but I've never been fond enough of carrots to give it a go."

"It's not normal where I'm from, either," Elphaba prefaced. "But I'm a Munchkinlander, from Munchkinland in Oz. And that's not Australia, I must also point out."

"Muchkinland? In Oz?" Jane frowned, because that certainly did not sound familiar to her at all. "Is it in Africa? Oh! Or perhaps some of the lesser explored regions of Siberia!"

"It is certainly possible," Elphaba admitted. "For stories of Oz have somehow become told in places such as this world. Oz is surrounded by desert on all sides. But I don't know what lies beyond that desert."

"How absolutely fascinating!" Jane gushed, trying to imagine where the unexplored desert might truly lie. "And now that I recall, you were the one that mentioned that the baboon might very well say hello rather than the grunting and the posing. Have primates really evolved to develop speech in your home country?"

"All Animals, actually," Elphaba said. "Owls, cows, monkeys, all of them. But not all animals are Animals, you see. Only some are... blessed with that ability."

"How absolutely, utterly, entirely, incredibly fascinating!" Jane gushed; she was well beyond the ability to keep her curiosity held back now. "Why, the desert that isolates Oz must give the native creatures the unique ability to develop in certain ways well beyond creatures in other areas, just like the marsupials of Australia!" Jane gave off the laugh of someone clearly amused and thrilled. "So perhaps the comparisons to Australia might not be too far off, Miss Thropp!"

"It might not?" Elphaba said, puzzled but curious. "I'll admit, I've read books on many of the animals of Earth. While they all have similar names, I had not thought any of them had gotten to the point of being Animals like in Oz."

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Primatology; Thursday, Fourth Period [ 01/13 ].

Sign In -- Primatology, 01/13.

Listen to the Lecture -- Primatology, 01/13.

Classify Primates...and yourself! -- Primatology, 01/13.

Talk to Jane -- Primatology, 01/13.

OOC -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Sign In -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Sign In -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Classify Primates...and yourself! -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Sign In -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Classify Primates...and yourself! -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Classify Primates...and yourself! -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Classify Primates...and yourself! -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Classify Primates...and yourself! -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Classify Primates...and yourself! -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Classify Primates...and yourself! -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Classify Primates...and yourself! -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Classify Primates...and yourself! -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Sign In -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Sign In -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Classify Primates...and yourself! -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Classify Primates...and yourself! -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Classify Primates...and yourself! -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Classify Primates...and yourself! -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Classify Primates...and yourself! -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Classify Primates...and yourself! -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Classify Primates...and yourself! -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Classify Primates...and yourself! -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Classify Primates...and yourself! -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Classify Primates...and yourself! -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Classify Primates...and yourself! -- Primatology, 01/13.

Re: Classify Primates...and yourself! -- Primatology, 01/13.