By looking at its bottom! If it has no tail, it’s probably either a ‘great ape’ — a gorilla, chimp, orang-utan, or bonobo – or it might be a type of gibbon or ‘lesser ape’, such as the siamang. Except for a few out of over 100 types, monkeys do have tails. Monkeys and apes belong to a group of intelligent animals called primates.
Amazing! You are a primate! Like all primates, you have forward-facing eyes, a big brain and hands that grip. Your genes (the instructions which tell your body what to be) are actually very similar to a chimp’s genes.
Who’s stopped being a primate?
Experts used to say that the tree shrew was a primate, but really they’re more similar to insect-eating creatures such as moles, shrews and hedgehogs.
Are monkeys and apes the only primates?
Lemurs, bushbabies, lorises and tarsiers are all primitive primates. They have smaller brains than monkeys or apes and rely more on their sense of smell than sight.
Is it true? Primates were around in dinosaur days.
Yes. People have found fossils of early, squirrel-sized primates that lived about 70 million years ago – about the same time that terrifying Tyrannosaurus rex roamed the land.
Picture Credit : Google