Shaping Primate Evolution is an edited collection of state-of-the-art papers about how biological form is described in primate biology, and the consequences of form for function and behavior. The contributors are highly regarded internationally recognized scholars in the field of quantitative primate evolutionary morphology. Each chapter elaborates upon the analysis of the form-function-behavior triad in a unique and compelling way. This book is distinctive not only in the diversity of the topics discussed, but also in the range of levels of biological organization that are addressed from cellular morphometrics to the evolution of primate ecology. The book is dedicated to Charles E. Oxnard, whose influential pioneering work on innovative metric and analytic techniques has gone hand-in-hand with meticulous comparative functional analyses of primate anatomy. Through the marriage of theory with analytical applications, this volume will be an important reference work for all those interested in primate functional morphology.

The effects of the bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) family on bone formation are well documented, but the transforming growth factor (TGF)-beta ( ) isoforms are much less studied. The product of 20 years of study, Induction of Bone Formation in Primates: The Transforming Growth Factor- 3 sums up editor Ugo Ripamonti's research into the osteogenic activity of the three mammalian TGF- isoforms, particularly in primates. It explores how the mammalian TGF- isoforms have the potential to shed light on the apparent redundancy of bone induction signaling. The book unearths the profound and important bone inductive activity of the TGF- 3 isoform. It includes accounts of extensive research in non-human primates from craniofacial tissue regeneration, heterotopic tissue induction, and chapters on periodontal tissue regeneration and synergistic induction of bone formation. It also discusses the future clinical role of the TGF- isoform, including in human studies. This book contributes to the fascinating history of BMP and TGF- research at the intersection of molecular biology, tissue induction, bone regeneration, and craniofacial surgery. It provides a revolutionary awakening to new possibilities in skeletal reconstruction, tissue engineering, and molecular and cellular biology.

Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus) are the only two species of the genus Pan, and are humans' nearest relatives. This book is an extensive review of the most recent observations from field studies on the diversity of Pan social behavior, with contributions from many of the world's leading experts. A wide range of social behavior is discussed including tool use, hunting, reproductive strategies, conflict management, demographic variables and ecological constraints. In addition to interspecies behavioral diversity, this text describes exciting new research into variations between different populations of the same species.

New information about disease transmission, dietary and economic linkage, and the continuing international focus on conservation and primate research have created a surge of interest in primates, and focus on the diverse interaction of human and nonhuman primates has become an important component in primatological and ethnographic studies. By examining the diverse and fascinating range of relationships between humans and other primates and observing how this plays a critical role in conservation practice and programs, Primates Face to Face disseminates the information gained from the anthropological study of nonhuman primates to the wider academic and non-academic world.

Comparative studies have become both more frequent and more important as a means for understanding the biology, behavior, and evolution of mammals. Primates have complex social relationships and diverse ecologies, and represent a large species radiation. This book draws together a wide range of experts from diverse fields, such as reproductive biology and foraging energetics, to place recent field research into a synthetic perspective. The chapters tackle controversial issues in primate biology and behavior, including the role of brain expansion and infanticide in the evolution of primate behavioral strategies. The volume also presents an overview of comparative methodologies as applied to recent primate research.

Infanticide by males is relatively common in primates, carnivores, and rodents, although it tends to be rare even in species in which it occurs. Is this behavior pathological or accidental, or does it reflect a conditional reproductive strategy for males in certain circumstances? In this book, case studies and reviews confirm the adaptive nature of infanticide by males in primates, and help to predict which species should be vulnerable to this phenomenon. Much of the book is devoted to exploring the evolutionary consequences of the threat of infanticide by males for social and reproductive behavior and physiology. Written for graduate students and researchers in animal behavior, behavioral ecology, biological anthropology, and social psychology, this book shows that social systems are shaped by ecological pressures, as well as social pressures such as infanticide risk.

Research on the mental abilities of chimpanzees and bonobos has been widely celebrated and used in reconstructions of human evolution. In contrast, scant attention has been paid to the abilities of gorillas and orangutans. This volume aims to complete the picture of hominoid cognition by bringing together the work on gorillas and orangutans and setting it in comparative perspective. This book's introductory chapters set the evolutionary context for comparing cognition in gorillas and orangutans to that of chimpanzees, bonobos, and humans. The remaining chapters focus primarily on the kinds and levels of intelligence displayed by orangutans and gorillas compared to other great apes, including performances in the classic domains of tool use and tool making, imitation, self awareness, social communication, and symbol use.

Our ability to 'think' is really one of our most puzzling characteristics. What it would be like to be unable to think? What would it be like to lack self-awareness? The complexity of this activity is striking. 'Thinking' involves the interaction of a range of mental processes--attention, emotion, memory, planning, self-consciousness, free will, and language. So where did these processes arise? What evolutionary advantages were bestowed upon those with an ability to deceive, to plan, to empathize, or to understand the intention of others? In this compelling new work, Peter Gardenfors embarks on an evolutionary detective story to try and solve one of the big mysteries surrounding human existence--how has the modern human being's way of thinking come into existence. He starts by taking in turn the more basic cognitive processes, such as attention and memory, then builds upon these to explore more complex behaviors, such as self-consciousness, mindreading, and imitation. Having done this, he examines the consequences of "putting thought into the world" -i.e., using external media like cave paintings, drawings, and writing. Immensely readable and humorous, the book will be valuable for students in psychology and biology, and accessible to readers of popular science.

In this book, field and laboratory researchers show that the Great Apes are capable of thinking at symbolic levels, traditionally considered uniquely human. They show these high-level abilities in both social and ecological domains, including tool use, imitation, pretense, self-awareness, deception, consolation, teaching and proto-culture itself. Here, contributors emphasize the mechanisms involved in building these abilities--especially the lengthy developmental and "enculturation" processes--suggesting changes to current views on how primate and human intelligence have evolved. Researchers and professionals in the fields of primatology, animal behavior, anthropology, linguistics, and cognitive psychology will find much useful information in this book.

Unlike humans, who came down from the trees and developed bipedal locomotion, chimpanzees have remained in the original habitat of our ancestors: the tropical rainforests of Africa.
In this book, Vernon Reynolds describes in detail the work of a large number of students and senior researchers on the wild chimpanzees of the Budongo Forest Reserve in Western Uganda. He presents a coherent and in-depth account of one chimpanzee community of more than 60 individuals living in the Sonso area in the middle of the Budongo Forest, which he and his colleagues have studied intensively over the last 15 years. The chimpanzees have never been provisioned and live in an entirely natural state. Reynolds describes their forest habitat, their diet and culture, their social organization and behavior, their diseases, and the threats to them that derive from the actions of people in the surrounding villages, the most serious of these being the presence of snares set by hunters to catch small antelopes and pigs.
As founder and head of the Budongo Forest Project, Professor Reynolds has been responsible for compiling the numerous publications, reports, and dissertations written about these chimpanzees. In this book, he combines these new and often unpublished studies with past publications about Budongo Forest. Where appropriate, he also compares the Budongo chimpanzees with wild chimpanzees studied at other sites across Africa. The result is the most comprehensive account of the Budongo chimpanzees ever published, with a wealth of referenced material that will serve as a source of information for many years to come.

How can the intelligence of monkeys and apes, and the huge brain expansion which marked human evolution be explained? In 1988, Machiavellian Intelligence was the first book to assemble the early evidence suggesting a new answer: that the evolution of intellect was primarily driven by selection for manipulative, social expertise within groups where the most challenging problem faced by individuals was dealing with their companions. Since then a wealth of new information and ideas has accumulated. This new book will bring readers up to date with the most important developments, extending the scope of the original ideas and evaluating them empirically from different perspectives. It is essential reading for reseachers and students in many different branches of evolution and behavioural sciences, primatology, and philosophy.

What special qualities of mind set the great apes apart from other nonhuman primates, and indeed from ourselves? In this book, field and laboratory researchers show that the great apes have high level abilities in both social and ecological domains, including tool use, pretense, self-awareness, deception, consolation, teaching and culture itself. Great apes are also shown to be capable of thinking at symbolic levels, traditionally considered to be uniquely human. Here, the mechanisms involved in building these abilities - especially the lengthy developmental and 'enculturation' processes - are emphasized, showing how new discoveries are changing views on how primates and human intelligence evolved. This book is for anyone interested in current research and theoretical views of great ape cognition.

This book presents a series of review chapters on the various aspects of primate kinship and behavior, as a fundamental reference for students and professionals interested in primate behavior, ecology and evolution. The relatively new molecular data allow one to assess directly degrees of genetic relatedness and kinship relations between individuals, and a considerable body of data on intergroup variation, based on experimental studies in both free-ranging and captive groups has accumulated, allowing a rather full and satisfying reconsideration of this whole broad area of research. The book should be of considerable interest to students of social evolution and behavioral ecology.

The genus Macaca is the most widely distributed of nonhuman primates and is found in twenty countries in Southeast Asia and North Africa. Over the comparative short time span of five million years, macaques have evolved diverse forms, from long-tailed arboreal types to robust terrestrial animals, and inhabit a variety of habitats. Although macaques are probably one of the most studied monkeys both in the wild and in captivity, data from long-term studies and pioneering work of little-known species are only just emerging. In this book, world authorities on macaques interpret recent research and present up-to-date syntheses of many aspects of macaque ecology, evolution, behavior and conservation.

Colobine monkeys have a unique digestive system, analogous to that of ruminants, which allows them to exploit foliage as a food source. This gives them a niche in Old World forests where they are often the only abundant medium-sized arboreal folivorous mammal. From a possible Miocene origin, Colobine monkeys have radiated into a wide variety of forms inhabiting a range of tropical woodlands in Africa and Asia. Most of the extant species have been subject to long term field studies, but until this book, no synthesis of work on this group has been available. The central theme is that of adaptive radiation, showing how the special features of Colobine anatomy interacted with a range of ecosystems to produce the distinctive species of today. The book also discusses parallels with other mammalian groups.

This collection of articles is completely and explicitly devoted to the new field of comparative developmental evolutionary psychology--that is, to studies of primate abilities based on frameworks drawn from developmental psychology and evolutionary biology. These frameworks include Piagetian and neo-Piagetian models as well as psycholinguistic ones. The articles in this collection--originating in Japan, Spain, Italy, France, Canada, and the United States--represent a variety of backgrounds in human and nonhuman primate research. The authors focus on such areas as the nature of culture, intelligence, language, and imitation; the differences among species in mental abilities and developmental patterns; and the evolution of life histories and of mental abilities and their neurological bases.

The chimpanzee of all other living species is our closest relation, with whom we last shared a common ancestor about five million years ago. These African apes make and use a rich and varied kit of tools, and of the primates they are the only consistent and habitual tool-users and tool-makers. Chimpanzees meet the criteria of a culture as originally defined for human beings by socio-cultural anthropologists. They show sex differences in using tools to obtain and to process a variety of plant and animal foods. The technological gap between chimpanzees and human societies that live by foraging (hunter-gatherers) is surprisingly narrow at least for food-getting. Different communities of wild chimpanzees have different tool-kits and not all of this regional and local variation can be explained by the demands of the physical and biotic environments in which they live. Some differences are likely to be customs based on socially derived and symbolically encoded traditions. This book describes and analyzes the tool-use of humankind's nearest living relation. It focuses on field studies of these apes across Africa, comparing their customs to see if they can justifiably be termed cultural. It makes direct comparisons with the material culture of human foraging peoples. The book evaluates the chimpanzee as an evolutionary model, showing that chimpanzee behavior helps us to infer the origins of technology in human prehistory.

As part of the SFI series, this book presents the most up-to-date research in the study of human and primate societies, including recent advances in software and algorithms for modelling societies, and it is ideal for professionals in archaeology, cultural anthropology, primatology, or computer science.

In the century and a half since Charles Darwin first began formulating his theories on evolution much research has been conducted on primate cognition. In this book, Michael Tomasello and Josep Call set out to review all that is scientifically known about the cognitive skills of nonhuman primates and to assess the current state of our knowledge. The authors integrate empirical findings on the topic from the beginning of the century to the present, placing this work in theoretical perspective.

Tucked into one of the most beautiful and conflicted regions of the world are the last of the mountain gorillas. These apes have survived centuries of human encroachment into their habitat and range and decades of intense conflict and violence. The remaining 720 mountain gorillas exist in a fragile habitat, nestled in an area torn by human interests and needs for land, water, and minerals.

With captivating photography and the most recent scientific research, Mountain Gorillas takes you deep into the montane rain forests of Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo to reveal the complex story of the mountain gorillas of the Virunga Volcanos and Bwindi. Gene Eckhart and Annette Lanjouw reveal how humankind affects the gorillas and their habitat, detail the innovative conservation and education efforts undertaken by governments and nongovernmental organizations, and explain how ecotourism and other conservation-focused enterprises support efforts to protect the two mountain gorilla populations.

This perfect blend of intimate photography, thought-provoking scholarship, and engaging stories demonstrates the inexorable ties among the animals, environment, and peoples of the region, and makes clear why the continued existence of the Virunga and Bwindi gorillas is so important. Mountain Gorillas features stunning photos and four appendices documenting key biological and ecological information, habitat vegetation, milestones in mountain gorilla conservation, and travel information.

The remarkable story of a "talking" chimp, a leading scientist, and the profound insights they have uncovered about our species

He has been featured in cover stories in Time, Newsweek, and National Geographic, and has been the subject of a "NOVA" documentary. He is directly responsible for discoveries that have forced the scientific community to recast its thinking about the nature of the mind and the origins of language. He is Kanzi, an extraordinary bonobo chimpanzee who has overturned the idea that symbolic language is unique to our species. This is the moving story of how Kanzi learned to converse with humans and the profound lessons he has taught us about our animal cousins, and ourselves.

". . . The underlying thesis is informative and well argued . . . Savage-Rumbaugh's results are impressive." — The Washington Post

"This popular, absorbing, and controversial account is recommended." — Library Journal

The woolly spider monkey, or muriqui, is one of the most endangered primate species in the world today. Because of deforestation pressures in its natural habitat-- the Atlantic coastal forests of southeastern Brazil--the muriquis are confined to less than three percent of their original range. There are now only a dozen forest fragments known to support a total muriqui population of about 500 individuals. This book traces the natural history of the muriqui from its scientific discovery in 1806 to its current, highly endangered status. The book provides a case study of this scientifically important primate species by balancing field research and ecological issues. Through Strier's accessible presentation, readers gain a broad understanding of primate behaviour and tropical conservation. The book also gives a practical account of how to set up and pursue an in-depth longitudinal study of an animal population, while describing the excitement of gaining first the muriquis' trust and then insights into their lives. The author offers the unique perspective of a highly committed anthropologist who has devoted years to the observation of this unique species, while working to train students and to protect the muriquis' remaining forest habitats. The book will interest biologists, primatologists, and zoologists, as well as anyone concerned with conservation, ecology, and animal behaviour.

Since 2013, an organization called the Nonhuman Rights Project has brought before the New York State courts an unusual request-asking for habeas corpus hearings to determine whether Kiko and Tommy, two captive chimpanzees, should be considered legal persons with the fundamental right to bodily liberty. While the courts have agreed that chimpanzees share emotional, behavioural, and cognitive similarities with humans, they have denied that chimpanzees are persons on superficial and sometimes conflicting grounds. Consequently, Kiko and Tommy remain confined as legal "things" with no rights. The major moral and legal question remains unanswered: are chimpanzees mere "things", as the law currently sees them, or can they be "persons" possessing fundamental rights? In Chimpanzee Rights: The Philosophers' Brief, a group of renowned philosophers considers these questions. Carefully and clearly, they examine the four lines of reasoning the courts have used to deny chimpanzee personhood: species, contract, community, and capacities. None of these, they argue, merits disqualifying chimpanzees from personhood. The authors conclude that when judges face the choice between seeing Kiko and Tommy as things and seeing them as persons-the only options under current law-they should conclude that Kiko and Tommy are persons who should therefore be protected from unlawful confinement "in keeping with the best philosophical standards of rational judgment and ethical standards of justice." Chimpanzee Rights: The Philosophers' Brief-an extended version of the amicus brief submitted to the New York Court of Appeals in Kiko's and Tommy's cases-goes to the heart of fundamental issues concerning animal rights, personhood, and the question of human and nonhuman nature. It is essential reading for anyone interested in these issues.

Erythrocytes of the Rhesus and Cynomolgus Monkeys addresses the morphologic, quantitative, and generative aspects of the erythrocytes of the rhesus monkey Macaca mulatta and the cynomolgus monkey Macaca fascicularis (long-tailed macaque, crab-eating monkey). These two species are the most commonly selected nonhuman primates for basic science and clinical medical investigations. The hemopoietic cells of man and the rhesus monkey display an intimate homogeneity. Their functional activities are close and at times identical. The cynomolgus monkey was enlisted in biomedical studies at a time when rhesus monkeys were not available in sufficient quantities. It has gained increased use in the Far East and in the Western world. It is, for example, employed in the current development of a vaccine against the deadly Ebola virus. The authors of the book discuss the erythropoietic profiles of normal and abnormal macaques of both sexes and of all age groups as investigated with contemporary electronic methodologies. They cover the role of stress as it is perceived by the monkey and how it impacts erythrocellular values, and how to train the monkey to be a cooperative, unperturbed subject for hematologic study. Additional topics include the role of medication in deriving normal physiologic erythrocellular data, the development of the precursors of the erythrocyte (normoblasts), the morphologic analysis of the megaloblastic series of abnormal erythroid cells, the analysis of erythropoiesis in bone marrow, the relationship of the simian immunodeficiency virus and erythropoiesis, erythrocyte life span, and parasitic invasion of the red cell.

The remote Gashaka region of north-eastern Nigeria is still largely unexplored. In this premier wilderness, monkeys and apes survive in large numbers -- part of a rich assemblage of wildlife at the interface between the dry sub-Saharan Guinea savannah and the moist Cameroonian highlands. Primates include the rarest chimpanzee subspecies, colobus, guenons and baboons, which thrive here despite the wet climate. The main ethnic groups -- Fulani cattle herders and Hausa speaking subsistence farmers -- still follow age-old traditions. Conservation challenges comprise settlements in protected areas, deforestation, annual fires, livestock grazing and hunting. Primates of Gashaka provides first-hand research accounts in conjunction with the Gashaka Primate Project, founded in 2000. Topics covers primate socioecology; genetics and phylogeography; nutritional ecology; vocal communication and cognition; ethno-botany and ethno-primatology; human subsistence strategies and conflicts with wildlife; as well as habitat surveys assessing success and failure of conservation approaches. The contributions aim for interdisciplinarity and comparative dimensions, across species and the African continent. This pioneering volume about one of the least known iconic primate habitats is of interest to primatologists, anthropologists, policy-makers and conservationists alike.