Narrow-nosed primates. lower narrow-nosed monkeys

Quite numerous in given time zoologists number 96 of their varieties. They settled exclusively in the Eastern Hemisphere (with the exception of Mona monkeys and green monkeys. They were brought from Africa in the 17th century and they fully adapted to living on tropical islands caribbean). Unlike narrow-nosed, they have anatomical features closer to humans. They have 32 teeth (those with 36 teeth), some of them are completely devoid of a tail, and those who have one do not use it when climbing trees. In most species, the pelvis performs the same functions as in humans - it supports internal organs while walking upright. Narrow-nosed animals are divided into two main groups: marmosets and hominids. There is also a third family, parapithecus, which is completely extinct.

The distribution range of these primates is very wide and is not limited only to the tropical zone. Of course, the narrow-nosed monkey prefers evergreen forests rich in fruits and plant foods, but they are also found outside them. The most northern species is considered to be Japanese mago (39 ° N). From winter frosts, which sometimes reach -12 ° C, these monkeys are saved by hot springs. In Europe, only one species has survived to this day - the tailless monkey that lives on Gibraltar (36 ° N). Two breeds living in Tibet are also described: to resist the harsh continental climate monkeys are helped by thick wool.

These are mostly small animals, although within the family there are maxims: the smallest is considered (35 cm), and the largest narrow-nosed monkey is a gorilla (meter and 75 cm). All primates of this family have narrow nostrils (with the exception of thick-bodied ones with a wider nasal septum. All of them are diurnal. Another characteristic feature are the cheek pouches where the animal puts "in reserve" food. In a calmer environment, when the individual is not afraid that relatives will take away food, she takes it out, chews it and eats it.

The narrow-nosed monkey - both marmoset and hominoid - has enough developed brain. She uses various devices for obtaining food: stones for breaking nuts, clubs for hunting snakes. Primates clean young resinous shoots from the bark and stick them into the anthill. The ants stick to the stick and the monkeys lick them off. Gorillas and chimpanzees are especially striking in their mental abilities, they can learn the language of the deaf and dumb and communicate with people.

The marmoset family, in turn, is subdivided into monkeys proper (they also include macaques) and in the latter the lower part of the face clearly protrudes forward, which creates a resemblance to a dog's muzzle. Baboons also have fangs, which they display as a symbol social status or in danger as a threat to the enemy. This narrow-nosed monkey lives in a society with an extremely developed hierarchy: in a flock, each individual is subjugated to someone and conquers someone. Zoologists believe that a similar hierarchy existed in the primitive herd of people.

Of the hominids, the black monkey, also called the pygmy chimpanzee or bonobo, is of particular interest. For a long time he was considered a chimpanzee, and only in 1957 was singled out as separate view. Its skin is black (in a common chimpanzee it is pink), more sloping, narrow shoulders and long legs. Makes barking, sharp sounds. Bonobo lives in the interfluve of Lualaba and Congo. Until now, this is a little-studied species, and its number does not exceed ten thousand individuals. Long black hair, parted in the middle, on a black face, and intelligent eyes give the animal a completely human appearance.

Narrow-nosed monkeys, or Old World monkeys, differ from American ones not only in a thinner nasal septum (which, by the way, brings them closer to humans), in a smaller number of teeth (32, but not 36), but also in the fact that the tail some species are underdeveloped, and if it is long, it is unable to cling to branches when moving through trees.

Narrow-nosed monkeys are divided into two well-separated families - marmosets and anthropoids.

The marmoset family. This group includes monkeys, which we meet more often than others in cages and aviaries of zoos - slender and dexterous African monkeys (Fig. 484), replacing them in the tropical countries of Asia, macaques, dog-headed baboons from mountainous areas Africa.

Monkeys move along the ground and along thick branches on four legs, leaning on the surface with the palms of their hands and the entire sole of their hind legs (Fig. 485). They have hairless ischial calluses on their bodies, and a pair of cheek pouches in their mouths - a kind of internal pockets where monkeys put part of the food they get, without wasting time chewing it when moving.

The vast majority of monkeys live in forests and move with great dexterity along the branches of trees, but compared to American monkeys, they turn out to be less specialized dart frogs and are unable to cling to branches with their tails; some species, as, for example, all dogheads, broke with the forest and became inhabitants of open highlands where they can climb the rocks with great dexterity.

As a rule, all monkeys are inhabitants of tropical countries. However, among the monkeys there are several species that already live outside the tropical zone. The tailless monkey, or mago, lives in Northwest Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia), as well as on the rocks of Gibraltar, that is, already in Europe (36 ° northern latitude).

The closest relative of this monkey, the Japanese mago, lives on the opposite edge of the Eastern Hemisphere and in its distribution reaches 39 ° north latitude, where it has to endure winter frosts down to -12 ° C. Two species of monkeys, dressed in thick and long hair, are found in coniferous forests Tibet is a high extratropical highland with a harsh continental climate.

In addition to monkeys and macaques - small monkeys with more or less human-like physiognomies - in our zoos you can see monkeys of rather large sizes and already less human-like - baboons and their relatives, united under common name dog-headed.

Most of the species of this peculiar group are inhabitants of rocky plateaus and rocky mountain slopes. tropical Africa. On the ground, they move on all fours, only occasionally rising to their hind legs. Unlike monkeys, they are not associated with forest landscapes, but on occasion they climb trees and climb their branches with sufficient dexterity, although due to their terrestrial lifestyle, their fingers are shorter than those of born poison dart frogs.

The name "dog-headed" is given to these monkeys because the front part of them protrudes forward in the form of an elongated muzzle with fanged jaws, especially impressive in larger males.

With such a structure, the massive head of baboons seems disproportionately large and overweight compared to their relatively short body, and the tails of some species are short (3-5 cm) stumps, while others somehow awkwardly stick out in the form of an arcuately curved stick, apparently, in these cases, having lost any functional significance.

For the sake of comparison, let us recall the appearance and habits of the natives of the same Africa - monkeys with their super-acrobatic dexterity of movements and with their mobile and expressive physiognomies. Undoubtedly, next to them, dog-heads will seem to us both ugly "from the face" and somehow awkwardly formed.

However, as it has already been repeatedly noted, we cannot impose our aesthetic requirements on nature: the divergence of characters in the two groups of narrow-nosed monkeys was associated with their settlement in two different biotopes. Rocky uplands make different “requirements” for their inhabitants than dense ones. rainforests. In particular, the greater bestiality of dogheads finds an explanation in the peculiarities of their living situation.

Forest monkeys have the opportunity to obtain a complete plant food for themselves in the form of sugary and farinaceous fruits, which form the basis of their diet, while dogheads living on rocky mountain slopes had to include meat food in their diet, eating not only invertebrates, but also reptiles and small mammals up to antelope cubs.

Dogheads also have to repulse terrestrial predators, and under such conditions their formidable fangs acquire an important protective value.

In the end adaptive features dogheads (including the advantages associated with their herd lifestyle) put them forward to a prominent place in the fauna of tropical Africa. The biological prosperity of this group is also evidenced by the significant diversity of doghead species and their abundance.

Of the representatives of this group, the mandrills (Fig. 486), which the famous Vrem recognized as "the ugliest of all monkeys", attract special attention of visitors to the zoo. In their appearance, the bright coloring of hairless areas unusual for mammals on their elongated muzzle, in the genital area and on the ischial tuberosities, where bright red and cornflower blue coloring alternates, is especially striking (recall that monkeys, unlike the vast majority of others mammals have, like humans, color vision).

A family of anthropoid, or anthropomorphic, apes. The highest group among monkeys are anthropomorphic monkeys, closest to humans. These include the most large species- a gorilla and a chimpanzee living in African forests, an orangutan - a large monkey from the island of Borneo, and several forms of gibbons 2 from Indochina and from the islands of Borneo and Sumatra (Fig. 487). The number of teeth they have is the same as in humans, and just like in humans, there is no tail. Mentally, they are more gifted than other apes, and in this respect the chimpanzee stands out in particular.

Recently (1957), the great ape bonobo was singled out as a separate genus - a form that until then was considered only a pygmy variety of chimpanzee.

All great apes live in forests, easily climb trees and are very imperfectly adapted to movement on the ground (Fig. 488). Unlike true tetrapods and bipeds, they have an inverse relationship between the length of the limbs of the first and second pair: their legs are relatively short and weak, while the prehensile upper limbs are significantly elongated, especially in the most skillful poison dart frogs - in gibbons and orangutans. .

When walking, the higher apes rest on the ground not with the entire sole of their feet, but only with the outer edge of the foot; with such an unsteady gait, the necessary assistance to the animal is provided by its long arms, with which it either grabs the branches of trees, or leans on the ground with the back of bent fingers, thereby partially unloading the lower limbs.

Smaller gibbons, descending from trees and walking through open space, move on their hind legs, and balance with their unusually long arms like a person walking along a narrow pole.

Thus, great apes do not have the straight human gait, but they do not walk on all fours in the way that most other mammals do. Therefore, in their skeleton we find a combination of some features of a two-legged man with animal features of four-legged mammals.

Due to the elevated position of the body, the pelvis great apes more close in form to the human, where it really justifies its name and supports the abdominal entrails from below (Fig. 489). In tetrapods, the pelvis does not have to perform such a task, and its shape is different there - it is easy to see on the skeleton of a cat, dog and other four-legged mammals, including monkeys (see Fig. 485).

The tail of great apes is underdeveloped, and its skeleton is represented in them, as in humans, only by a small rudiment - the coccygeal bone, which is closely soldered to the pelvis.

On the contrary, the inclined position of the neck and the stronger development of the facial bones, pulling the skull forward, bring the great apes closer to the four-legged animals. Strong muscles are required to support the head, and with this is the development of long spinous processes on the cervical vertebrae and bony ridges on the skull; both serve to attach muscles.

Strong chewing muscles also correspond to large jaws. They say that a gorilla is able to gnaw through a gun taken from a hunter with its teeth. For attaching chewing muscles in the gorilla and orangutan, there is also a longitudinal crest on the crown of the head. Due to the strong development of the facial bones and crests on the skull, the cranium itself turns out to be more laterally compressed and less capacious than in humans, and this, of course, is reflected both in the size and in the development of the cerebral hemispheres (Fig. 490): the gorilla is almost it is the same as a human, and its brain weighs three times less than a human (430 g for a gorilla and 1,350 g for a person).

All modern anthropoids are inhabitants rainforest, but adaptability to life among woody vegetation they are not expressed to the same extent. Gibbons are natural-born poison dart frogs. Orangutans also constantly hang on trees; there they arrange their nests, and their fitness for climbing is clearly expressed in their structure. long arms, whose brushes with four long fingers and a shortened thumb have a characteristic monkey shape that allows them to cling tightly to the branches and branches of trees.

In contrast to orangutans, gorillas mainly lead a terrestrial lifestyle in forests and climb trees only for food or for safety, and as for chimpanzees - smaller and heavier monkeys, they occupy an intermediate place in this respect.

lower narrow-nosed monkeys

The lower narrow-nosed ones have a somewhat elongated muzzle, the nostrils are brought together and separated by a narrow septum. Some monkeys have a long tail, although it plays an insignificant role in climbing, others have no tail or it is short. Limbs either equal length or the front ones are shorter than the back ones. The thumb is usually opposed to the rest.

Strong development of the cheek pouches is characteristic. Many have ischial calluses, which are exposed areas of skin with a large fatty lining. They are mainly arboreal and live in small herds. Monkeys predominantly African species, and macaques are South Asian monkeys.

Monkeys

Monkeys- These are medium-sized monkeys, body length from 20 to 70 cm, weight 3-6 kg, with a tail longer than the body.

Females are smaller than males. The coat is soft and thick, but short, its color varies greatly. Large cheek pouches. Ischial calluses are separate.

They live in rain, seasonal, mountain, tropical and savanna forests, very mobile. They feed on leaves, fruits, young shoots, eat bird eggs, chicks.

Like other types of monkeys, monkeys raid gardens, fields and plantations. There are few enemies, they are very cleverly defended from them by the whole herd.

macaques- large monkeys, body weight from 3.5 to 18 kg. They have a thick body thumb small, opposed to the rest of the fingers; between the fingers of the hands and feet there is a leathery membrane. They are common in South and East Asia, in northern Africa.

Among the macaques, the most famous is the rhesus monkey - a large monkey with a dull greenish-yellow fur color. The limbs are almost equal in length, the tail is short. Ischial calluses bright red. The rhesus monkey lives in the forests or on the open mountain slopes of Southeast Asia.

Macaques keep in small herds - up to 20 individuals. These monkeys are very mobile and restless, constantly chasing each other, are not afraid of water, swim and dive well.

They feed on a variety of foods: fruits, roots, leaves of plants, insects, mollusks.

Rhesus macaques are often kept in zoos, often used for medical purposes.

Monkeys and Us There is another important group of evolutionary witnesses related to the differences between men and women - our close relatives. big monkeys- chimpanzees, pygmy chimpanzees (also known as bonobos), gorillas and orangutans,