Question

. . Discuss and describe the Hominoids – general characteristics and then a specific characteristic of each taxon. Who are the hominoids? How are close or distantly related are we to each taxon in the hominoids. What are the scientific names, in general what is their diet, and where are they found? What is their social structure? What is their pattern of locomotion? What about life history variables in hominoids?

Answer 1

Hominoids are a large group that includes humans, their fossil ancestors, and the anthropoid apes. Most hominoids are skilled and agile tree climbers except humans and gorillas. Hominoids have lower center of gravity. They have a broad pelvis. They have a wide chest. They have more upright posture than other primates. Their shoulder blades lie on their back. They lack tail as compared with monkeys. They form social groups. They are highly intelligent. The diet of hominoids are: leaves, seeds, nuts, fruit, animal prey etc.

The hominoids include: chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and gibbons as well as humans.Chimpanzees have flat faces like humns. They have bare skin on their palms, hands and soles of their feet. Gorillas are very large and powerful. The orangutans have large flappy cheek-pads known as flanges. The gibbons are the fastest tree living mammal.

The hominoids are found in Africa, Asia and Europe in the early days but now they are all over the world since humans are hominoid too.

The social structure of hominoids varies from species to species. Gorillas live in groups of 5 or 10 or more. Chimpanzees can form groups of 40 to 100 individuals. Humans can form large number of individuals in a society.

The pattern of locomotion exhibited by hominoids are manily bipedalism. As their physical structure is developed to be a biped. The gibbons and orangutans exhibit locomotion through tree branches.

Talking about the life history variables such as body mass, brain growth and dental development. The humans are the top in brain development. Each species have slightly different teeth structure. For example, gorillas have strong jaws with broad strong teeth to rip apart twigs and branches of trees for eating. the body mass varies from species to species also. The gorillas have the largest body mass upto 200 kg and more.