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o Precocial babies are relatively developed and mobile at birth . primates! Wide variety! Whales! o Humans are a major exception * we are an altricial species, born helpless! o Primates are typically precocial, but there is a wide variability in this e,g. Humans e Advantages of Living in Social Groups o Ready access to potential mates o Cooperation in finding food o Cooperation in rearing young o Cooperation in avoiding or defending against predators o Reduced chance that any one individual will be the unlucky meal for a predator o Animalia = 1 2 million species o 8 millions animals © Animalia is divided into 36 phyla. o We belong to phylum chordata o Chordata = primates, has spinal cord, about 60,000 species o Chordata is divided into classes. o We belong to class mammalia o Mammalia = warm blood, sweat and mammary gland, give birth, covered in hair, over 5000 species. Quite low. o Mammalia divided into 3 infraclasses m Metatheria (marsupials) = 350 species, almost all in australia. m Prototheria (monotremes) = only 1 specie of platypus and several echidna m cutheria (placental mammals) = over 5000 species. Primates belong here. o Eutheria includes about 20 different orders. One of which is primata o Order Primata - has about 375 species of primates o Order carnivora = 280 species o Order cardoptra = 98 species of bats o Order r something = 1500 species of rodents o " many primates! Unit 4: Primates 4.2 Primate Evolution: the big picture Adaptive radiation e ‘Rapid’ speciation (divergent evolution) within a lineage to fill different ecological niches- usually follows a major change in environmental circumstances