Introduction: evolution, morphology, and behavior of lorisoid primates

Abstract

This special issue of the American Journal of Primatology is based on the symposium ‘‘Evolution, Functional Morphology, and Behavioral Ecology of Lorises and Galagos (Lorisoids)’’ held at the 74th Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in Milwaukee during April 2005. This symposium was convened in an effort to bring together as many people as possible who were doing work in these fields and to generate discussion on how future efforts might be focused. The authors who contributed to this special issue represent just a fraction of the individuals who are currently doing outstanding work on lorisoids, and we are very grateful for their participation in the symposium, as well as for their work in bringing these manuscripts together here. Special thanks go to the following individuals who were not able to submit their work for this special issue but are making valuable contributions to the field: Kaberi Kar Gupta at Arizona State University (behavior of wild slender lorises [Kar Gupta, 2005; Kar Gupta & Nash, 2004], Michelle Becker at the National Institutes of Health (galago vocalizations [Becker et al., 2003a,b]), and Jeffrey Schwartz at the University of Pittsburgh (systematics of Perodicticus [Schwartz, 1996; Schwartz & Beutel, 1995]. We also especially thank Simon Bearder for his perceptive ‘‘Afterward’’ to this issue. He brings a unique perspective, based on his experience as a pioneer in the study of lorises and galagos, to integrating these papers into a wide-ranging view of what it means to be a nocturnal primate, and the special conservation issues facing these animals. Much of our knowledge about strepsirrhines is derived from studies on the mainly diurnal lemurs and indriids. The nocturnal lorises and galagos have not been studied as thoroughly, perhaps in part because of the difficulty of tracking and observing relatively small, arboreal animals that move through dense vegetation under the cover of night. However, an understanding of lorisoid evolutionary history, morphology, and behavioral ecology may be critical to our understanding of primate origins, special senses, and social systems. The papers in this special issue are an effort to increase our understanding in these areas,