COMPARATIVE PRIMATES

DIET

Lemurs (Prosimians/Strepsirhini)

Lemurs are only found on Madagascar and the Comoro Islands that is located on the eastern coast of Africa. Madagascar at one time was covered with forest, but up to 80 percent has been destroyed. Most lemurs live in trees, which make them arboreal, meaning that they have adapted to living in trees. They spend most of their time at the top of the rainforest canopy or in the forest midlevel. An exception is the ring-tailed lemur, which spends most of its time on the ground. The climate of Madagascar is tropical, with a rainy season lasting from December until April and a dry season from May to November. The island's terrain is extremely diverse, ranging from coastal beaches and lagoons to mountains, rivers, grasslands, and desert.

Lemurs usually have a vegetarian diet, consisting of leaves and fruit, although they will occasionally eat insects or smaller animals.

                                                              

Lemurs play an important role in the ecology of Madagascar and the Comoros Islands, because they disperse seeds from the fruit they eat. These seeds can then grow into new plants, which is important because the forests of Madagascar are being destroyed at a very high rate.  Although the lemurs themselves help to disperse seeds for new plants, they cannot keep up with the people that cut the forests down. Lemur populations are also hurt by hunting. However, all types of lemurs are protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which makes it illegal to hunt or capture lemurs for trade, except for scientific research, and to breed in zoos. These laws are well enforced, and the lemur has been a focus of conservation efforts even though lemurs are no longer being hunted as much as in the past, deforestation is still threatening their survival.

Spider Monkey (New World Monkeys/Platyrrhini)

Spider monkeys are generally found in lowland rain forests from Mexico to South America, along the coasts and the banks of the Amazon, and the mountain forest slopes of the Andes. Spider monkeys live in evergreen rainforests, lowland rainforests to mountain forests. In these forests, they prefer it be wet than dry, live mostly in the upper canopy, undisturbed high forest, and almost never come to the ground.  These types of monkeys are arboreal. 

Spider monkeys are primarily frugivorous, preferring a diet of 90% fruit and seeds and feed on a wide variety of fruits in which the seeds are swallowed along with the fruit. They also eat young leaves, flowers, aerial roots, sometimes bark and decaying wood, as well as honey.  A very small part of the diet consists of insects, insect larvae and birds’ eggs. They do not pick fruit and carry it to another location to be eaten.  They usually eat while suspended and can pick fruit with their tails.

                                                     

They usually feed in groups sometimes up to 100 monkeys and are found in a big tree loaded with fruits. When they feed in a large tree, spider monkeys continuously adjust their positions so they are not too close to one another.  Spider monkeys can be quarrelsome feeders if they are too close to one another.  During those months of the year when they have to depend on small, scattered sources of fruit, such as from palm trees, lone individuals and smaller aggregations are found moving through the forest. Thus, they avoid quarrelling at food sources with only enough ripe fruit at any one time to feed a few monkeys.

Baboon (Old World Monkey/Cercopithecidae)

Baboons live mostly in the African woodland savanna, and highland grasslands. They never wander far from trees, or a source of water. Baboons are some of the world's largest monkeys, and males of different species average from 33 to 82 pounds (15 to 37 kilograms). Baboon bodies are 20 to 40 inches (60 to 102 centimeters) long, not including substantial tails of varying lengths. Baboons are not like other monkeys in that they don’t live in trees and spend most of their time on the ground.  The only times they go into the trees is to escape predators, play or to get food.

Baboons are omnivorous which means that they eat fruits and meats. They eat fruits, grasses, seeds, bark, and roots, and have a taste for meat. They eat birds, rodents, and even the young of larger mammals, such as antelopes and sheep. Since they are on the ground, they tend to eat crops.  Having this type of diet, they can survive on the ground and not have to only rely on fruits and leaves like other monkeys. 

Gibbon (Lesser Ape/Hylobatidae)

Gibbons are small apes that live in the wild in the tropical and subtropical rainforests of Southeast, South, and East Asia. They are currently found in small populations in China, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Bangladesh, NE India, Myanmar, Malaysia, and Indonesia.  Gibbons are arboreal apes that live in the trees. 

Gibbons are also omnivores (eating plants and meat). They look for food in the forests during the day, eating fruit (which makes up about 75% of their diet), leaves, flowers, seeds, tree bark, and tender plant shoots. They also eat insects, spiders, bird eggs, and small birds. Gibbons drink water by dipping a furry hand into the water or rubbing a hand on wet leaves, and then slurping up the water from their fur. Gibbons sometimes do this while dangling above the water from a thin tree branch. 

Chimpanzees (Great Ape/Hominidae)

Chimpanzees are our closest living relatives, sharing more than 98 percent of our genetic blueprint.  Humans and chimpanzees are also thought to share a common ancestor who lived some four to eight million years ago.  Chimpanzees live in African rain forests, woodlands, and grasslands. They tend to spend more time in the trees swinging from branch to branch and do m most of their eating. Chimpanzees usually sleep in the trees as well, employing nests of leaves.

Chimpanzees are generally fruit and plant eaters or frugivors, but they also consume insects, eggs, and meat, including carrion. They have a tremendously varied diet that includes hundreds of known foods. Chimpanzees are one of the few animal species that employ tools. They shape and use sticks to retrieve insects from their nests or dig grubs out of logs. They also use stones to smash open tasty nuts and employ leaves as sponges to soak up drinking water.  

According to my findings on all five primates, a majority were arboreal and had diets of fruits, leaves, and insects. Only a few were omnivorous that had a diet of fruits and meats. All five of their environments were being taken away by humans for logging or crops.  Many of these primates are on the endangered list because of these activities.  Their habits are being dwindled and they have no room to grow or find a source of food.  In some areas they are even hunted because the human population has taken over their habitats.