Question

What is the significance that primates generally give birth to one offspring at a time and the elongations of gestation and infant dependency? What does this mean about the degree of learning found among prosimians, monkeys and apes.

Answer 1

The primates generally give birth to 1 offspring at a time with long gestation period to protect them from predators for much longer time. The primates have the behaviour to protect their young ones with much care and protection. This care and protection needs much attention of the parents so that they can feed them and naresh them properly. But this task will not be properly completed if there are more than 1 offspring for a single parent. Also the primates needs to to protect their young ones from the predators that's why they are adapted to protect their young ones in their womb for a longer gestation period. Thus, these adaptations will ensure a proper nutrition and proper development of the offsprings when they are small in number for a single parent. Also it is easy to protect them from the predators when they are less in number.

The young ones learn much from their parents about how to survive in in competitive conditions and how to get food. For this learning, the young ones have to depend on their parents for a a longer time which is called infant dependency.

Thys, the monkeys and apes are much good learners. This behaviour is responsible for their good learning capacity and good memory. Also they are curious in behaviour to learn something.