page_title: Primate
section_title: Body
hierarchical_section_title: Primate / Anatomy and physiology / Body
caption_attribution_description: Left back foot of Chlorocebus pygerythrus - roadkill from Magaliesberg near Sparkling Waters
context_page_description: A primate is a eutherian mammal constituting the taxonomic order Primates. Primates arose 85–55 million years ago first from small terrestrial mammals, which adapted to living in the trees of tropical forests: many primate characteristics represent adaptations to life in this challenging environment, including large brains, visual acuity, color vision, altered shoulder girdle, and dextrous hands. Primates range in size from Madame Berthe's mouse lemur, which weighs 30 g, to the eastern gorilla, weighing over 200 kg. There are 190–448 species of living primates, depending on which classification is used. New primate species continue to be discovered: over 25 species were described in the first decade of the 2000s, and eleven since 2010.
  Primates are divided into two distinct suborders. The first suborder is called strepsirrhines, which contains lemurs, galagos, and lorisids. These primates can be found throughout Africa, Madagascar, India, and Southeast Asia. The colloquial names of species ending in -nosed refer to the rhinarium of the primate. The second suborder is called haplorhines, which contains "dry-nosed" primates in the tarsier, monkey, and ape clades.
context_section_description: Primates generally have five digits on each limb (pentadactyly), with a characteristic type of keratin fingernail on the end of each finger and toe. The bottom sides of the hands and feet have sensitive pads on the fingertips. Most have opposable thumbs, a characteristic primate feature most developed in humans, though not limited to this order, (opossums and koalas, for example, also have them). Thumbs allow some species to use tools. In primates, the combination of opposing thumbs, short fingernails (rather than claws) and long, inward-closing fingers is a relict of the ancestral practice of gripping branches, and has, in part, allowed some species to develop brachiation (swinging by the arms from tree limb to tree limb) as a significant means of locomotion. Prosimians have clawlike nails on the second toe of each foot, called toilet-claws, which they use for grooming.
  The primate collar bone is a prominent element of the pectoral girdle; this allows the shoulder joint broad mobility. Compared to Old World monkeys, apes have more mobile shoulder joints and arms due to the dorsal position of the scapula, broad ribcages that are flatter front-to-back, a shorter, less mobile spine, and with lower vertebrae greatly reduced - resulting in tail loss in some species. Prehensile tails are found in atelids, including the howler, spider, woolly spider, woolly monkeys; and in capuchins. Male primates have a pendulous penis and scrotal testes.
caption: Vervet hindfoot showing fingerprint ridges on the sole
exif: {}