Is there anything to Learn from Lesser Known Primates about Human Evolution?

Abstract

Copyright: © 2012 Grueter CC. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Primatological research is often justified on the grounds that it contributes to an understanding of the evolutionary trajectories of behavioral and morphological characters that are either unique to humans or are shared with closely related species. The study of nonhuman primate species can serve as referential models to provide insight into our evolutionary history [1-3]. There has been a noticeable bias, however, in the application of such parsimony principles towards our immediate relatives, viz. chimpanzees and to a lesser degree bonobos [4]. Papioninshave also received some attention, as they dwell in environments similar to those of our forebears and also exhibit a human-like social organization [5,6]. Although I in no way discount the value of using these species as models, I argue that there are other, lesser known, primates that may shed complementary light on human traits [7].