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fandomhigh2011-02-03 08:27 am
bootlessjane.livejournal.com) wrote in fandomhigh2011-02-03 08:27 am
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Primatology; Thursday, Fourth Period [ 02/03 ].
"Good afternoon, class!" The students would find the usual classroom much in regular order with the exception of a long table off to the side with various large bowls and platters on it. Each was covered, for the time being, and Jane was at the front of the class with a piece of chalk in hand to start the lecture.
"I hope you all had fun last week exploring the jungles! I know I always do! Unfortunately, this class will not be quite as adventurous in the traditional sense, but you'll find there will be something exciting later on, nonetheless. We will share some of our stories of the exploring in just a moment, but, first, I should like to tell you all about the primate's diet.
And so she turned to the board and began:
"Primates have access to a great many different food sources, and they exploit this fact to live off of a veritable cornucopia of sustenance. It has been said that many characteristics of modern primates, including humans, derive from an early ancestor's practice of taking most of its food from the tropical canopy. Most primates include fruit in their diets to obtain easily digested carbohydrates and lipids for energy. However, one can't live on fruits alone! They require other foods, such as leaves or insects, for amino acids, vitamins and minerals, which makes most primates omnivores, meaning they consume both vegetable and meat. Primates in the main suborder Strepsirrhini...that's non-tarsier prosimians...are able to synthesize vitamin C, while primates of the suborder of Haplorrhini...your tarsiers, monkeys and apes...have managed to lose the ability to synthesize vitamin C in their evolutions and so they are required to add it in their diets in others ways, through various plants.
"You see, many primates have anatomical specializations that enable them to eat particular foods, such as fruit, leaves, gum or insects, with ease and without too much trouble. For example, leaf eaters such as howler monkeys, black-and-white colobuses and sportive lemurs have extended digestive tracts which enable them to absorb nutrients from leaves that can be difficult to digest."
And weren't all the students so lucky to have diagrams being sketched out to show this?
"Marmosets, which are gum eaters, have strong incisor teeth, enabling them to open tree bark to get to the gum, and claws rather than nails, enabling them to cling to trees while feeding. The Aye-aye combines rodent-like teeth with a long, thin middle finger to fill the same ecological niche as a woodpecker. It taps on trees to find insect larvae, then gnaws holes in the wood and inserts its elongated middle finger to pull the larvae out. Some species have additional specializations. For example, the Grey-cheeked Mangabey has thick enamel on its teeth, enabling it to open hard fruits and seeds that other monkeys cannot. It's truly fascinating, really, how every species of primate has developed in certain ways to adapt to their ability to retain sustenance!
"The Gelada is the only primate species that feeds primarily on grass. Tarsiers are the only extant obligate carnivorous primates, exclusively eating insects, crustaceans, small vertebrates and even snakes! Capuchin monkeys, on the other hand, can exploit many different types of food, including fruit, leaves, flowers, buds, nectar, seeds, insects and other invertebrates, bird eggs, and small vertebrates such as birds, lizards, squirrels and bats, if you can imagine eating a bat! The Common Chimpanzee has a varied diet that includes predation on other primate species, such as the Western Red Colobus monkey. So, as you can see, the primate diet is highly specialized and varied depending on species."
"And so, that brings us to our activities for today. I'm going to pass out list of our primate friends and I'd like us to have a look at their characteristics, habitats, and anatomy and discuss how we can determine what their diets might consist of. And then I hope you didn't eat too much for lunch today, because I have a treat! The table over there has a variety of different foods common in the primate diet, so that we can first-hand have the experience of what they find particularly tasty! There's all sorts of stuff, and so you can be safe or you can be adventurous, but we can snack as we share our tales of exploring from last week.
"Any questions?"
[[ OCDon the way is up! ]]
"I hope you all had fun last week exploring the jungles! I know I always do! Unfortunately, this class will not be quite as adventurous in the traditional sense, but you'll find there will be something exciting later on, nonetheless. We will share some of our stories of the exploring in just a moment, but, first, I should like to tell you all about the primate's diet.
And so she turned to the board and began:
"Primates have access to a great many different food sources, and they exploit this fact to live off of a veritable cornucopia of sustenance. It has been said that many characteristics of modern primates, including humans, derive from an early ancestor's practice of taking most of its food from the tropical canopy. Most primates include fruit in their diets to obtain easily digested carbohydrates and lipids for energy. However, one can't live on fruits alone! They require other foods, such as leaves or insects, for amino acids, vitamins and minerals, which makes most primates omnivores, meaning they consume both vegetable and meat. Primates in the main suborder Strepsirrhini...that's non-tarsier prosimians...are able to synthesize vitamin C, while primates of the suborder of Haplorrhini...your tarsiers, monkeys and apes...have managed to lose the ability to synthesize vitamin C in their evolutions and so they are required to add it in their diets in others ways, through various plants.
"You see, many primates have anatomical specializations that enable them to eat particular foods, such as fruit, leaves, gum or insects, with ease and without too much trouble. For example, leaf eaters such as howler monkeys, black-and-white colobuses and sportive lemurs have extended digestive tracts which enable them to absorb nutrients from leaves that can be difficult to digest."
And weren't all the students so lucky to have diagrams being sketched out to show this?
"Marmosets, which are gum eaters, have strong incisor teeth, enabling them to open tree bark to get to the gum, and claws rather than nails, enabling them to cling to trees while feeding. The Aye-aye combines rodent-like teeth with a long, thin middle finger to fill the same ecological niche as a woodpecker. It taps on trees to find insect larvae, then gnaws holes in the wood and inserts its elongated middle finger to pull the larvae out. Some species have additional specializations. For example, the Grey-cheeked Mangabey has thick enamel on its teeth, enabling it to open hard fruits and seeds that other monkeys cannot. It's truly fascinating, really, how every species of primate has developed in certain ways to adapt to their ability to retain sustenance!
"The Gelada is the only primate species that feeds primarily on grass. Tarsiers are the only extant obligate carnivorous primates, exclusively eating insects, crustaceans, small vertebrates and even snakes! Capuchin monkeys, on the other hand, can exploit many different types of food, including fruit, leaves, flowers, buds, nectar, seeds, insects and other invertebrates, bird eggs, and small vertebrates such as birds, lizards, squirrels and bats, if you can imagine eating a bat! The Common Chimpanzee has a varied diet that includes predation on other primate species, such as the Western Red Colobus monkey. So, as you can see, the primate diet is highly specialized and varied depending on species."
"And so, that brings us to our activities for today. I'm going to pass out list of our primate friends and I'd like us to have a look at their characteristics, habitats, and anatomy and discuss how we can determine what their diets might consist of. And then I hope you didn't eat too much for lunch today, because I have a treat! The table over there has a variety of different foods common in the primate diet, so that we can first-hand have the experience of what they find particularly tasty! There's all sorts of stuff, and so you can be safe or you can be adventurous, but we can snack as we share our tales of exploring from last week.
"Any questions?"
[[ OCD