2 Anthropology Assignments Essay Paper
1-FIRST ASSIGNMENT
Introduction
The primary features that define primates as a taxonomic order are mainly found in the skull and on the hands and feet. The reason for this has to do with the fact that the hands and feet and the head are the areas of the body that interact with the environment the most and as such are are subject to the greatest amount of selective pressures.
Nails, opposable thumbs, friction ridges among other are anatomical features that have been selected for within the primate lineage and assist in the survivability of young primates.
ORDER NOW FOR COMPREHENSIVE, PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPERS
What you are doing
Your task is to explore a primate hand features and explain how that primate hand feature enhance fitness.
What you have to do for points
Make sure you answer all of the following questions for full points.
- What does the arboreal hypothesis suggest about the reason why primates have the unique features, such as opposable thumbs, that they have on their hand?
- Explain how primate hand features increase fitness and give one example. When writing about your example name the hand feature that you have chosen and explain clearly why it increase fitness in a tree environment.
- Conjecture what would happen if a primate infant did not possess your chosen primate hand features. Answer this question with the survivability of the infant in mind. Also, consider that during the first phase of an infants life it will be held by its mother and in addition the infant will have a strong grip by which it will be able to hold on tight to its mother’s fur.
- SECOND ASSIGNMENT : Discussion Board: Primate Evolution (Graded Assignment)
-
What defines primates as a taxonomic order is a list of physical features that are the result of a recent common ancestry. For this discussion board I would like you to share your favorite non-hand primate adaptation with the rest of the class. Briefly tell us how a primates fitness might be affected if the primate was missing that trait.Also, your chosen features does not have to be at at the level of taxonomic order. For example, you can talk about hominoidea which are at the superfamily level and discuss the absence of a tail.