#lorises

[clawmarks]

Le jardin des plantes - Pierre Bernard - 1842 - via Internet Archive

[antiqueanimals]

From Midnight Animals, published 1987, written by Christopher Tunney and illustrated by Michael Atkinson (American, b. 1946)

[monkeymetamorphosis]

YA’LL!! MAKE THIS MAKE SENSE!! LEFT IS TARSIERS, RIGHT IS LORISES. THE SUBORDER HAPLORHINI IS WHAT MONKEYS AND APES ARE IN. ARE TARSIERS MORE CLOSELY RELATED TO MONKEYS AND APES THAN LORISES BUSHBABIES & LEMURS????? HOW???

[highways-are-liminal-spaces]

Top 5 primates ?

As you can see, I am extremely in favor of small, nocturnal creatures with huge eyes, and I've tried to vary the species so this isn't simply a list of nearly identical tarsiers. Fun fact: these species are not particularly related! It's likely close to the ancestral primate form and we should all be aiming for this aesthetic, as a species.

(As usual, all photos credited in links)

1. Aye-Aye

2. Red Slender Loris (Grey Slender Loris is also perfect, please look at all the slender loris photos here)

3. Philippine Tarsier

4. Mohol Bushbaby

5. Gray Mouse Lemur

[mckendrickslove]

Claude Monet- The Yellow Irises, 1917

[cryptids-of-the-world]

The Spiny-Backed Chimpanzee is an alleged primate found in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Spiny-Backed Chimpanzee is described as gray chimpanzees that are between four and five feet tall with spines growing out of their backs that stand up when they are agitated.The Spiny-Backed Chimpanzee was first sighted between 1997-2002 by the U.S. Navy on an expedition to the Congo. The Navy team saw the chimps trying to kill an animal and they allegedly filmed their encounter but it is believed to be a well-kept military secret. In Guide des Animaux Cachés a book written and illustrated by Philippe Coudray he believes that the Navy’s encounter was close to Lake Tanganyika. Some people believe that the Spiny-Backed Chimpanzee is a loris-like creature called a Potto however the two look nothing alike which leads to even more questions.

Art by: Philippe Coudray

[primatology-daily]

What’s up with lemurs?

I bet you woke up with the same question plaguing your mind. Are they monkeys? Are they some sort of skunk dogs? Well, they’re both, kind of! 

They belong to a different brand of primates— The Strepsirrhines. A sub-order named for their characteristic “wet nose.” Lemurs, lorises, galagos, and pottos are all Strepsirrhine primates, which is why they look and act differently than most of the name-brand monkeys and apes we know and love. Everything else, (monkeys apes) are Haplorrhines, but we’ll learn more about them later. 

Strepsirhines are different because they rely more on scent than Haplorhines. Scent glands and urine can be used to mark territory, detect pheromones, and even have stink fights (if you’re a lemur). Pictured below: A Potto! (Pottos and Slow Lorises are pretty cool because they secrete a poison from their sexual glands, which they lick before biting a predator, making them the only venomous primate! Wowza.)

There are two Super Families in Suborder Strepsirrhini: Lemuroidea and Lorisoidea... the lemurs and lorises, obviously! These classifications are pretty easy to remember, and a helpful taxonomic hint is that endings in -ea are superfamilies, and endings in -ae are families, (ex: Lemuroidea lemuridae) 

One unique physical characteristic besides a relatively smaller brain:body size ratio, is the tooth-comb. The lower-front teeth of all Streps. form a comb shape that helps them with grooming. 

Streps. and Haps. evolved from the same mammalian ancestor, and the divide between them is the first big split in the Order Primates. Lemurs are especially interesting because they evolved on Madagascar and they are only found in Madagascar. When a species only exists in a certain place we say it is endemic, so a lemur is endemic to Madagascar. 

Unfortunately, the logging industry has greatly deteriorated the forests of Madagascar, meaning all lemurs are at risk of extinction. But more on this issue, and lemurs, in another post! 

(photos from Google) 

[aaron-mueller]

loris