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This book is an accessible and comprehensive introduction to primatology. It provides both a survey and synthesis of primate history, biology and behaviour. As a survey, it offers a focused review of living and extinct primates in regional and community frameworks. As a synthesis, it applies the community perspective in a unique way to explore primates' adaptive diversity in the context of how evolution works. The book encourages students to study primates as integrated members of regional communities, ecologically, historically and evolutionarily.
The chapters are organized to emphasize the patterns of primate radiations in the four regions of the world where primates live and to facilitate comparisons among the radiations. The overviews of communities illustrate how the ecological adaptations of different species and taxonomic or phylogenetic groups enable them to coexist. Illustrations and tools to aid students' learning, include case studies, photographs, figures, tables, charts, key concepts and quizlets to self-test.
This book is an ideal introduction for students studying primatology, primate behaviour or primate ecology.
1. What is a Primate?
2. Arboreal Frugivory: The Primate Adaptive Zone
3. Madagascar: Lemurs
4. South America: New World Monkeys
5. Africa: Lorises, Galagos, Old World Monkeys, and Great Apes
6. Asia: Lorises, Tarsiers, Old World Monkeys, and Apes
7. Primates Communities Compared: Ecology, Morphology, and Behavior
8. The Primate Fossil Record: Highlights
9. Primates in Crisis
Alfred L. Rosenberger, PhD., is a Professor Emeritus at Brooklyn College and The City University of New York Graduate Center, NY, USA, where he taught in the anthropology departments for more than a decade. Dr Rosenberger is a Fulbright Fellow and an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has authored more than 100 articles and co-edited several volumes on living and fossil primates. Rosenberger’s definitive book New World Monkeys: The Evolutionary Odyssey was published by Princeton University Press in 2020.
"Rosenberger offers an exciting new take on a survey of nonhuman primates, focusing on continental radiations and the biology and evolutionary history that unites them. In so doing, he provides a rigorous discussion of the anatomical, behavioral, and ecological features that differentiate primate taxa but within the familiar framework of geography rather than taxonomy, which is likely more palatable for undergraduates. A unique and effective approach!"
– Larissa Swedell, Professor and Chair, Queens College
