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20. Monkey & Ape Business: Intro to Primatology (Evolution #2)

 

September 15, 2025

 

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Monkey & Ape Business: Intro to Primatology (Evolution #2)


Lea and Sophia continue their evolution series, detailing the evolutionary history of primates, from the Cretaceous Period to the Miocene, highlighting key epochs and the differences between Old World and New World monkeys. They explore the field’s history, noting the Japanese and Western approaches, and discuss notable primatologists like Jane Goodall and Diane Fossey. The conversation also touches on the ethical considerations of primate research and the impact of human activities on primate populations.

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Transcript:

Lea:

Hello friends, and welcome back to anthro.mp3. We’re students from UMass who love anthropology. AnthroHub is a website we help run that’s full of all things Anthro. Make sure to check it out to look at some incredible blog posts and creative works made by students from our school and others. My name is Lea, and I’ll be one of your hosts today.

 

Sophia:

and I’m Sophia, your other host for today.

 

Lea:

So today’s episode is the second part of our evolution series where we’ll be talking about primatology. Yay. As an evolutionary anthropology major, I’m very excited and rubbing my hands together mischievously. If you haven’t listened to Episode 18 yet the first part of our series, I highly recommend you do so. But since I can’t force you, I’ll give a brief summary. Sophia and I discussed the historical aspect of evolutionary theory while also dismantling misconceptions about evolution. We defined evolution as the gradual change in inherited traits of the population or organisms across generations, which allows organisms to adapt to changing conditions. And by the way, humans did not come from apes. We share a common ancestor with them.

 

Sophia:

and I just want to highlight that point again, because misunderstanding evolution has led to a plethora of pseudoscientific nonsense important to this episode. By assuming that we are the penultimate creation of evolution and that all other primates are just less of all versions of us, we reinforce anthropocentrism, or the idea that we are separate from nature and superior to it. This is problematic for a number of reasons, but if we make assumptions like this, our analysis of the natural world will be flawed, something we will discuss later in this episode.

 

Lea:

Very based take and please keep that in mind. Thank you very much. Well, all right, let’s get into the meat and potatoes of today’s episode. Like I said, we’re discussing primatology. Primatology is defined as the study of the behavior, biology, evolution and taxonomy of non-human primates. Studying primatology actually helps us better understand ourselves as humans and allows us to make assumptions about the behaviors of our ancestors. Because it’s such a broad topic, I’m gonna have to throw out some watered down definitions and topics. So bare with me. Are you excited for this lore drop absolutely hit me with it in the last episode. And like I’ve mentioned already, there is a misconception that humans came from chimps. Now I don’t know where this wahoo came from, but if you aren’t annoyed about it already, I’ll say it again. Humans did not come from chimps. So to talk about what actually happened – and this is the deep lore here. We got to go back to the Cretaceous Period. I know you’re probably like, this is going to take forever, but I promise I’ll be as brief as possible. There’s evidence that suggests the first primate-like species dates back to 66 million years ago. Five teeth were discovered in Montana that supposedly belonged to two species of insectivore-like primates called Purgatorius. This isn’t a universally accepted fact, but merely a possible starting point. Then we move on to the Paleocene, which lasted from 66 to 56 million years ago. The Paleocene epoch immediately followed the extinction of dinosaurs, and the Earth’s climate was warmer than today, but cooler and drier than the epochs immediately before and after it. Complete skulls and partial post cranial skulls found from Europe and North America. North America showed specialized dentition during this period. I also want to mention that, as I’m discussing these epochs, imagine yourself in one of those Jurassic jungle ambiance YouTube videos. Do you guys know what I’m talking about, or am I the only one who has those on my watch list? Anyways, next is the Eocene, which was from 55.8 to 33 point 9 million years ago, where the known fossil families are the tarzi day, or tarsiers, the adapted Day, which include probable ancestors of lemurs and lorises, and the Omomyidae, which include possible ancestors of monkeys and apes. Eocene actually means dawn of recent life. So many mammals that we’re familiar with today first appeared during this era. Then comes the Oligocene, which spanned from 33.9 million years ago to 23 million years ago. And we pretty much rely on two areas of fossil evidence for primates during this time period, Texas and Egypt. This time period is essentially the first piece of evidence we have for old world versus New World monkeys.

 

Sophia:

I just want to interject really quickly. The phrase is new world versus Old World monkeys are named for the fact that they were discovered in the old world according to colonialism, Africa, Asia, etc, and New World monkeys because they were discovered in the Americas, the term New and Old World have no chronological meaning besides the designation they were given as a result of colonialism.

 

Lea:

Old World species, known as the catarane, describes apes and Old World monkeys. The main difference in this case is the form of the nose. Catarrhines have downward facing narrow noses with a thin septum and opposable thumbs. New World monkey. Or Platyrrhines, on the other hand, have broad noses with the wide septum and outwardly directed nostrils. Platyrrhines do not have the finger dexterity that Catarrhines have. Then during the Miocene epoch, there was a series of climatic changes that led to exceedingly colder winters in the northern hemisphere. In the late Miocene, open woodlands started slowly replacing evergreen forests where our ape-like ancestors lived. This allowed for a growing and diverse environment that allowed for a varied locomotion, or how they move among a species, the topography of the world as we know it was being established too. Apes of the Miocene – and notice how I said apes here, lacked long curved digits, which suggests that they were able to hang from branches, but more often moved on all four of their limbs. We know this from fossil evidence of the earliest Miocene ape called Proconsul.

 

Sophia:

So what’s the difference between monkeys and apes?

 

Lea:

Oh, I love this question. If I had sunglasses on right now, I’d be slowly lifting them away from my eyes and smirking. Well, basically a monkey has a tail. So chimps, baboons and gorillas are apes because they have no tails, and marmosets and capuchins are monkeys because they do, that’s pretty much it. Most monkeys have tails. Apes don’t either. Monkeys are mainly found in Africa, Asia and Central and South America. Apes really only live in Africa and Asia together, though they make the order primate. Like, remember that one song, kingdom, phylum, class, and order family, genius species primate is essentially just the overarching term for monkeys and apes. Also, like, imagine a macaque and a chimpanzee. Apes, the chimp, in this case, have wider chests and larger frames. They also generally have naked faces. Monkeys are typically smaller in stature and have furry faces. If you haven’t watched the movie Rio, and I highly recommend that you do so, and I accept the fact that it’s my personal bias, but also one of the best animated movies of all time. There are only monkeys and no apes in the movie. You know that scene where the birds have a war against the monkeys and they’re throwing fruit at each other. All those monkeys are actually common marmosets.

 

Sophia:

I should really re-watch that movie.

 

Lea:

Yes, you absolutely should. And there’s definitely more evidence as we keep going down the line of epics and such. But I think it would be more beneficial to jump back to seventh grade science class. What do you think Sophia?

 

Sophia:

I think I would benefit from a refresher.

 

Lea:

So I may have

missed an important step while I was blabbing before 335 million years ago. And I hope I sound like David Attenborough at the beginning of a documentary. Here was Pangea. Yes, that’s right, the Pangea, North America, Africa, South America, Australia, Antarctica and Europe were all huddled up as one massive continent. It’s theorized that as Pangea broke up, the division between quote, unquote, Old and New World monkeys came to be obviously, though this was over a really long time period. It’s not like Pangea happened overnight. Primates and our nearest relatives were spread all over Pangea, and as it drifted apart, different environmental conditions demanded different evolutionary paths. We also get to the topic of isolated species, or species that are only found in one part of the world. An example would be Siao Island tarsiers. And I think I’m pronouncing that right, which are tarsiers found on the volcanic island of Siao in Indonesia. Tarsiers are actually really difficult to classify, since they kind of fall under both categories. For now, they’re listed under their own classification with the haplorhines, which I’m about to get into. But if you don’t know, tarsiers are those really cute little guys with the huge eyes. They kind of look like if somebody was drawing an owl, but looking at a monkey the whole time. Anyway, I’m getting off topic. I talked about catarrhines and platyrrhines, but there are many more irons to be discussed. Primates are generally divided into two other groups, the haplorhines and the strepsirrhines. Haplorhines include tarsiers, monkeys, apes and humans, while the strepsirrhines are lemurs, galagos and lorises. Haplorhines are considered the higher primates, while strepsirrhines are the lower primates. You can generally say that strepsirrhines have more pre-primate ancestral traits. Strepsirrhines have longer snouts, smaller brains and a more highly developed sense of smell than haplorhines. Haplorhines have smaller faces, larger brains and more highly developed vision, so their eyes face more forwards than strepsirrhines. And a cute little fact too is that strepsirrhines have wet noses while haplorhines have dry ones. Okay, so we started with the specific classifications of primates, time traveling through the epics and why primatology is important. But you may be thinking that we’ve left out a very vital piece of information.

 

Sophia:

Hmm, I wonder what that could be. An episode about primatology, and we talked about everything except what makes a primate.

 

Lea:

All right, guys, since you’re begging me to get to it, I will. A primate is distinguished by a variety of physical characteristics that make them different from other mammals. Some of these include opposable thumbs and opposable big toes, five digits, fingers and toes on the appendages, flat nails, instead of curved claws, pads at the tip of the fingers, which are made of deposits of fat and nerves. And relatively small snouts with less reliance on a sense of smell, binocular vision, which means the ability to see one image with both eyes, slow reproduction or gestation periods, larger brains relative to body size and postorbital bars, meaning the presence of little bony rings that surround the eyes. These things individually, aren’t exclusive to primates like cats and owls and a lot of other animals have binocular vision, but it’s the fact that all these things are found together is what makes a primate. And I’m hoping this is sounding familiar to you, because you Yes, you are, in fact, a primate. Opposable thumbs, five digits on each appendage. Fatty pads at our fingertips and flat nails make it so that primates use hands and feet, very differently from other mammals, like I said, hands and feet, as opposed to PAWS or talons. We can engage in tool use, like chimps using sticks to catch ants and humans typing on laptops and doing discussion posts. And the big thing is bipedalism. All primates can engage in some sort of bipedalism, meaning walking upright on two legs. I’m sure we’ve all seen videos of gorillas or something standing up on their legs and taking a few steps forward. What makes humans unique, though, is the position of our femurs that are slightly angled, medially from the hip to the knee. Our knees are closer together and rest right below our body center of gravity. You can stand and walk for long periods of time, like all the time, because there’s less strain on our muscles, our pelvis is also short and wide, as opposed to long and thin. Like non-human primates, this orientation allows us to walk and balance upright without having to shift weight forward and use our knuckles for stability. Like other primates, there are other skeletal features that demonstrate the adaptation for bipedalism in humans, but that’s for another episode.

 

Sophia:

Yeah, look out for a future episode on the evolution of homosapiens, AKA, us.

So now that we’ve gotten an overview of the science of primatology, I’d like to cover some aspects of its history as a field. First of all, there are two major strains of primatology. One originating in Japan and another in North America and Europe. Both of which gained prominence mostly after World War II. In Japan, a scientist named Kinji Imanishi, along with two of his students Itani and Kawamura, stumbled upon an isolated band of Macaques that would forever change the course of their work. Dr. Imanishi, who previously focused on horses, distinguished himself in his research by emphasizing the individuality of his subjects. When he was working with a herd in Mongolia, he could name and describe each of its members from the top of his head. And this careful attention would be replicated in his primatological research. This is a distinguishing feature of Japanese primatology versus Western primatology. Imanishi, Itani and Kawamura believed in ‘kyokan’ or to ‘be one with’ their subjects in order to study primates, which involves a sense of care that is often discouraged in western science. And this could be for a number of reasons, Frans de Waal (a well-respected who sadly passed away last year in 2024) ruminated on the impact of human culture on the study of primate culture. From Plato’s “great chain of being” to Christian dogma to Rousseau’s “noble savages,” Western philosophy consistently placed humans above all else, aka the anthropocentrism we mentioned earlier. In the west, primates were assumed to be more like automatons that functioned individualistically. Whereas, Imanishi’s team was able to identify elements of shared culture in primates almost immediately, starting with potato washing among juveniles on Koshima island.

 

Lea:

Why haven’t I heard more about this?

 

Sophia:

Well, herein lies another issue… and it’s as simple as language. Frans de Waal put it succinctly “Good ideas formulated in bad English either die or get repackaged.” As it so happens, English is the primary language of science, even globally. And that decision has a lot more to do with politics than it does practicality, and it effectively ensures that the global west or countries that have much greater access to the English language or people who can translate their work to them, is overrepresented in a majority of scientific fields. So if Japanese scientists didn’t write their reports in perfect English, they were more often than not dismissed, and if someone from the west did acknowledge their significance, often they would co-opt it.

Even though early Western primatologists like Ray Carpenter loudly supported the work being done by Japanese Primatologists for the reasons mentioned above, the Japanese concept of “kyokan” was incorporated into western methodology without any credit to its founders.

 

Lea:

That’s really interesting and also really upsetting.

 

Sophia:

It is. And unfortunately, I think Western science’s inability to incorporate subjectivity or a non anthropocentric world view, really set the field back nowadays. The work started in Japan in the 40s and 50s is mostly referred to as cultural primatology, and while its validity is still highly debated because of objectivity politics, it can give us some clues as to the origin of our culture.

 

Lea:

That’s definitely recently such a common theme in Western academia, especially in the United States, anything outside of a Western experience or perspective has to be given a different label.

 

Sophia:

It is. And now we get on to the Western strain of primatology. So the first person who probably comes to mind, and for very good reason is Jane Goodall. She was the first person to systematically study the behavior of chimps, and the project she started has been going on for more than 50 years.

 

Lea:

That seems like forever ago, but also not that long ago, wow.

 

Sophia:

Yeah I think we forget how new so much of science is. Darwin’s “Origin of Species” was published in 1859 or 166 years ago [as of 2025]. Primatology itself wasn’t taken seriously until after World War II, and many of its founding members, including Jane Goodall, are still alive.

And she was originally part of a triumvirate of female biologists referred to as the “Tri-mates.” These were three women, Jane Goodall, Birutė Galdikas, and Dian Fossey, who were recruited or supported by Louis Leakey. Leakey, who we will discuss more in a future episode about human evolution, was an evolutionary anthropologist who helped prove that humans originally evolved in Africa, shifting archaeological focus from Asia—at the time—to Africa. He was a huge deal in his field and he wanted to continue revolutionizing our understanding of ourselves, which he did by encouraging research of our closest relatives. He believed that women would make better field researchers because societal expectations of them had made women more keen observers. And that because of the omnipresent male gaze in research, women would be more likely to present revolutionary ideas. Goodall herself also speculated that her gender sometimes worked as an advantage in remote research sites where locals were more likely to perceive men as a threat. But that being said, the research was still incredibly dangerous.

 

Dian Fossey, one of the Trimates whose specialty was Gorillas, faced extreme adversity in her quest for knowledge. She set up camp in the Virunga Mountains in the relatively new Democratic Republic of the Congo, but as political unrest worsened she was escorted away from her research site by armed guards and held for two weeks. She bribed the guards to escort her to Uganda under a false name, and after her escape, she was advised by the US embassy not to go back to Congo or near her research site again. However, upon consultation with Leakey, Dian resolved to continue her work in the Virunga Mountains if only on the Rwandan side of the border. Despite her initial struggles she found success among troups there, especially group 4, particularly because of a young male gorilla she named Digit because of an injury to one of his fingers. He had no playmates in his age group and therefore was more inclined to seek out Dian for companionship. Some of the most well-known photographs, taken by a photographer named Bob Campbell of Dian, are of her and Digit. One day, poachers attacked group 4, and Digit would die helping to defend his troup, having been stabbed several times and his body was found without his hands or feet. Consistent poaching, and the death of several of their male leaders, led to group 4 ultimately disbanding. It was instances like these that radicalized Dian.

 

Lea:

Radicalized?

 

Sophia:

Yes. A lot of publications since Dian’s death have glossed over the reality of her anti-poaching activities. She was known to take poachers or alleged poachers hostage and inflict bodily harm in retribution for their work or in an attempt to extract information about their activities. Her ‘take no prisoners’ approach would alienate locals from the conservation movement even to this day. And its believed to have led to her death. In 1985, a few weeks before her 54th birthday, Dian Fossey was found murdered in her cabin having been struck twice in the head by a machete.

Lea:

That’s pretty horrible

 

Sophia:

It is, but it’s important not to turn away from complicated subjects like this. Poaching is horribly destructive, but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it was wealthy (mostly European buyers) who funded it. And yet, Fossey would target poachers who are mostly just trying to survive in a global economy that massively disadvantaged them.

Nowadays, ‘extreme conservation’ looks more like introducing positive human influence like animal sanctuaries and veterinary care, rather than quote-unquote “bad actors.”

 

Lea:

That’s amazing. I definitely feel like Dian Fossey was, you know, influenced by the time and believed her work was, I don’t know, more positive than it is. Definitely just because, like you said, These people are just actors in a society that is really disadvantaging them.

 

Sophia:

I do think there was a failure on her part to understand that the people that she was targeting were also victims of a system that disadvantaged them, and thankfully, we are moving in a better direction.

And so the other two members of the Trimates, Jane Goodall and Birutė Galdikas, who study chimpanzees and orangutans respectively have encouraged other women to take up the field, leading to primatology to be a female dominated field.

Other notable female researchers include Patricia Wright, whose life’s work includes discovering a new species of lemur and helping to establish a national park in Madagascar for lemur conservation. And Claudine André, whose research on Bonobos have led to the world’s only bonobo sanctuary and rewilding program in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a safe haven for young bonobos who have been impacted by the bushmeat industry. But not to change the subject entirely, but we mentioned in the planning of this episode that we wanted to talk a little bit about what interests us personally about primatology. My favorite primate is a bonobo, what’s yours?

 

Lea:

So me personally, I think I switch between my favorite primate like everyday. The other day when we were in the editing room, I think I said a macaque or something. Before I said chimpanzee, maybe today I’ll say common marmoset because, you know, recency bias. Wait, I also do like capuchins too. Emperor tamarins are cute too because of their little mustaches. Ok, I actually have no idea. But what makes bonobos your favorite?

 

Sophia:

Probably that they are our closest relatives genetically speaking, we share about 98.7% of our DNA with them. And although they are kind of known as the ‘pacifists’ of the primate world, recent research indicates that their social interactions might be more complex than previously thought. They still have aggressive interactions, like chimpanzees, but they utilize different strategies to reconcile or de-escalate conflict. Significantly, bonobos are matriarchal, have strong female alliances and they prefer to use relationship politics—like grooming and courting—to determine social hierarchies and mating behaviors rather than shows of strength.

 

Lea:

Could you get a bit more into that?

 

Sophia:

Yeah, for sure. So primates exhibit what we call ‘sexual dimorphism,’ which is a difference in body size between males and females. A majority of primates are dimorphic with males exhibiting larger overall body size. Which is important because it impacts primate mating behaviors, for example, species with more significant dimorphism, where males are much larger on average than females we tend to see a correlation with more aggressive mating strategies. This is especially true of Chimpanzees, which demonstrate some of the most aggressive strategies to maintain dominance in the gene pool. We won’t get into the extremes of that in this episode, feel free to google but just know you’ve been warned.

Anyways, there are other strategies. Grooming, which is where one primate will sort of brush the hair of another and pick out bugs as a way of acknowledging hierarchy (as in an ape that is lower in social status will groom a higher status ape) or to encourage mating is a common and peaceful group behavior. And in some primate species, courting pairs will spend a great deal of time together before mating.

 

Lea:

Oh! Like they’re dating! So cute!

And on the topic of chivalry and courting.. I just want to touch on primate mating systems real quick. Primate mating systems can be categorized into four of five different types. For this episode, we’ll stick with four. There’s monogamy, polygamy (which is why some people say there are five mating systems rather than four because instead of using the umbrella definition of polygamy, they use polyandry and polygyny, which is when one has more than one male and female partner respectively), multifemale-multimale, and dispersed. In monogamous, polygynous, and polyandrous primate groups, females have longer-term sexual relationships, either with a single male or, in the case of polyandry, with multiple partners. In multimale-multifemale and dispersed mating systems, both males and females are polygamous. They all mate with multiple members of the opposite sex. Some species that function on multimale-multifemale sociality include vervet monkeys, ring-tailed lemurs (like king julian from madagascar), capuchins, and baboons. A really cute fact, speaking of relationships, is that there are only a few primate species that form life-long bonds and mate for life. Those are gibbons, titi monkeys, and tamarins. If you wanna know some gossip though, is that these species aren’t strictly monogamous. There are cases where individuals will cheat (gasp), or leave their partner for another. But also, this is unfortunately really common in humans too and we have morals. Anyways.. Lore aside, it’s been found that copper titi monkeys exhibit mate-guarding behaviors, meaning they become defensive of their partner in certain social situations, and become distressed when they are apart. Dr. Karen Bales actually stimulated a jealousy scenario in a study, where male monkeys were separated from their pair-bonded female partners. The females were then placed with a stranger male monkey within full view of the original male partner.  The researchers then filmed the behavior of the male partner for 30 minutes. The control condition was that the male subject watched a non-paired female interact with a stranger male. They found that when a titi monkey is feeling jealous, it actually arches its back, lashes its tail back and forth and is generally more emotionally aroused. Imagine like an angry cat. Male titi monkeys have also been known to physically hold their partner back from interacting with other males. Anyway, I wish this was like a youtube video so I could show some really adorable pictures of titi monkeys holding hands.

 

Sophia:

That would be really cute. Now to segue inot something a little less cute… you talked a little bit about primate experiments and think that’s something worth talking about a little bit more, as it is understandably controversial. In this past year, UMass – Amherst, our home institution invited members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, to tour the Lacreuse Lab where Marmosets were allegedly being experimented on. PETA has been protesting this research for years, and it’s been a sticking point for students and administrators. Dr. Agnès Lacreuse, head of the lab, claims that this all a publicity stunt to fundraise for their organization. Lacreuse said that they weren’t even interested in the welfare of the marmosets just in running a victory lap after years of protesting.

Now, PETA itself stands on ethically dubious ground, being accused of high rates of animal euthanasia, advocating against pet ownership, sexist ad campaigns, and among many other things, become a bit of a cultural joke. However, I still feel like there is criticism to go around. Primates are some of our closest relatives, and therefore make very good candidates for biomedical research and very likely saving many, many lives.

As of 2019, in the US alone there were 68,000 primates used for research, and because of the structure of our reporting systems there is no way of knowing what proportion are being used for invasive versus noninvasive studies.

That being said, primate research is also leading fundraiser for conservation efforts. And many studies are dedicated to studying how—as primate’s ecological niches are decreasing—to save their homes and their species. Many research institutes are dedicated solely to maintaining primate population numbers in captivity to reintroduce them to their native environments safely at some point in the future.

If there’s any take away for me, it’s that this is obviously very complicated. I would simply say that our closest biological relatives probably deserve more protection and oversight.

 

Lea:

Yeah, I mean.. I’m gonna go on a tangent real quick but I was watching The Amazing Spider-Man the other week, the one with Andrew Garfield aka the best one, and my friend and I actually got into a really long conversation about the ethics of animal testing and research. I think I have two opinions; nonhuman primates were not meant for animal testing, y’know? They were meant for suspending from branches, smashing seeds and monkeying around, pun intended. But also.. Most of what humans do under capitalism wasn’t evolutionary favored; we’re kinda cheating the system here. So anyway, I don’t know. I understand the quote-on-quote need to study nonhuman primates for medical research and generally bettering human health. But I would never want to be a part of live primate testing within a lab unless it was a study that didn’t require any sort of medical intervention or could lead to mortality. I’d rather be a part of primate research in the field, related to conservation and diet/dentition, or even rehabilitation. Humans basically cheated their way into being the global apex predator and there’s rarely any space on Earth that hasn’t been influenced by our species. So it sometimes feels like medical research is furthering that sense of human domination over other species, but that’s not to say that I don’t think it’s important.

 

Sophia:

Yeah. I mean, there’s mixed feelings to go around, but to move on to another example of human sort of interference in primate existence. If you were to ask any given American what was the closest contact they’ve ever had with a primate, they would probably say the zoo. And that’s certainly true of me. And ever since getting to know more about primates and their conservation, my feelings regarding zoos have become complicated. For one thing, zoos. Our major sites for Primate Research, which I’ve mentioned before, is somewhat testy, but also benefits towards humans tend to far outweigh their benefits towards primates.

 

Lea:

Real quick, my closest experience with a primate was when I was like six or seven years old visiting family in Brazil. I was visiting this convent called convento da penha and was sitting by this railing that overlooked the forest while I was reading bread with butter. I put my bread down, looked away, and when I looked back, a marmoset was balancing on the railing and reaching over to my plate to grab my bread. I froze up and just watched this dude take my slice and run away. Anyway, yeah zoos.. I hate them. Putting animals in enclosures way too small for human entertainment is exactly what I was talking about before with human domination.

 

Sophia:

If one is interested in maintaining safe spaces for primates outside of their shrinking natural habitat, these can be done without centering human entertainment. For example, my freshman year I took an intro to biological anthropology class and we took a field trip to the Lemur Conservation Foundation, which is a land reserve dedicated to maintaining the population of lemurs in as natural of a habitat as possible outside of madagascar. Tours are extremely limited, and are for educational purposes only, and the ‘research’ conducted there is entirely non-invasive. It is also a training site for prospective primate behaviorists.

 

Lea:

That’s super cool! I super agree that that’s the way to go with safe spaces for animals, primate or not.

 

Sophia:

Yeah it is. I was really lucky to have seen it. Besides that experience the only other thing I would have to go off of with regards to primates would be the Planet of the Apes movies.

 

Lea:

That being said…thank you all for tuning in to our show today. Another thanks to our team members and our collaborators with AnthroHub, especially our tech crew. To stay connected, you can find us on Instagram @anthro.mp3. You can also find our sources, transcripts of each episode, and more in our AnthroHub show notes. I was one of your hosts today, Lea, joined by our other host, Sophia, and our tech crew. If you enjoyed this episode, you’ll love our next one! Keep an eye out on our instagram for future updates on shows, specials and events. Catch us next time, and have a great day, friends.

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