Primate Evolution

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Primate Evolution

• Prosimians (40 million years ago)
• -grasping fingers and toes
• -binocular vision
• -lemurs are modern prosimians
• Apes, monkeys (Anthropoids)
• monkeys even better vision than prosimians
• -opposable thumb
• -complex social behavior
• -learning (extended parental care)
• -large brains
• apes hominoids (15 million years ago)
• Hominids -humans and extinct ancestors
• - bipedal, larger brains
• (extensive use of tools,
  language)

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• -Australopithecus
• -Homo habilis
• -Homo erectus
• -Homo sapiens (500,000 years ago)
• Homo sapiens sapiens (modern humans)

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