Vervet Monkeys - The Least Concern Primates

A primate is of the biological kingdom Animalia, phylum Chordata, class Mammalia, order Primates (Goodman et al., 1990). They were originally divided into two suborders, prosimians and simians. This has been ammended by taxonomists to suborders strepsirrhini and haplorrhini (Groves, 2005).
Unlike humans (Homo sapiens), who inhabit all continents, non-human primates inhabit tropical and subtropical regions in the Americas, Africa and Asia. Primates range in size from Berthe's mouse lemur (Microcebus berthae) from Madagascar (Mittermeier et al., 2006), weighing an everage of 30g, to the Mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei) found in the Virunga volcanic mountains bordering Uganda, Rwanda and DRC, and Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda, weighing an average of 200Kg.

Non-human Primate - Gelada

Human - We're Primates Too

Primates exhibit a wide range of characteristics that distinguish them from other mammals (Plough et al., 2005; Soligo & Müller 1999; McDonald 2006).

These characteristics include the following:

• five digits on the fore and hind limbs
• opposable thumbs
• nails instead of claws
• stereoscopic vision
• high visual acuity
• colour vision
• relatively large brain and developed cerebral cortex
• long life-history
• highly social