Crossword Puzzle for Primates
Topics 1-3: Overview and Prosimians Parts 1-2

Across

1. Carefully picking through hair or fur looking for insects, twigs, and other debris. This is common behavior for primates. It helps them keep clean and satisfies psychological needs. It usually is a very pleasurable activity for primates, including humans.
4. A term referring to animals that are adapted to life in the trees.
6. A term referring to animals that are normally awake and active during the night but sleep during the day.
8. A term referring to vision with two eyes.
10. A close African relative of the Asian Loris. They are slow, cautious climbers and creepers on forest branches like lorises.
12. A species of Madagascar primates that have long spring-like legs that allow them to jump over 30 feet from tree to tree. This evolutionary specialization of their legs forces them to hop rather than walk when on the ground. They are members of the family Indriidae.
16. The term for the ability to physically grasp something. All primate hands have this capability. With the exception of humans, they all also have feet that can do it. The larger New World monkeys have tails that can do it as well.
17. The technical name for a collarbone. All primates have one of these bones on each side of the body going from the center of the upper chest to the shoulders.
18. The characteristic of having five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot.
21. The characteristic of having a diet consisting of both meat and vegetable foods.
23. The time between conception and birth in animals. Another word for this is pregnancy.
25. A strong grip formed by the partial flexion of the fingers and the palm with counter force applied by the thumb. You would use this kind of grip to hold a shovel or bicycle handlebars while riding.
28. The characteristic of having a diet consisting only of vegetable foods.
29. A term referring to North, Central, and South America. By comparison, the Old World refers to Europe, Africa, and Asia. This distinction is an ethnocentric reflection of the European origin of our modern sciences.

Down

2. The largest non-human Madagascar primate. During the early evening, they mark their territories in the tree tops with loud, piercing vocalizations. By doing this, they space themselves out in the forest. They are members of the family Indriidae.
3. A small arboreal African prosimian in the superfamily Lorisoidea. They are fast hoppers that can jump 30 times their own body length. They are also called bush babies.
5. The big island on which lemurs are found today. Along with a few small neighboring islands, this is the only place in the world that lemurs have survived in the wild.
7. The sense of touch.
9. 
A rat-sized primate from some of the islands off Southeast Asia. Biochemically they are close to monkeys, but chromosomally they are unique among the primates. Unlike the lemurs, they lack a long snout and a rhinarium, or moist, hairless pad at the end. They can rotate their heads nearly 180°, like owls. They have long hairless tails, except for tuffs on the end, like kangaroo rats.
11. A term referring to animals that are adapted to life on the ground.
13. A grip formed by pinching with the tips of the flexed forefingers and the thumb. This allows a hand to be used effectively for manipulating even tiny objects. You would use this kind of grip to hold a pencil while writing.
14. The ability to see things in three dimensions (3-D). This kind of vision is what allows for true depth perception.
15. The biological order that includes humans, monkeys, apes, and prosimians.
19. A South Asian prosimian in the superfamily Lorisoidea. They are about the size of domesticated cats. They are slow, cautious climbers and creepers on forest branches. They have unpleasant tasting poisonous saliva that they lick onto their fur. Mothers also lick the fur of their babies which helps to protect them from potential predators.
20. A term referring to animals that are normally awake and active during the daylight hours but sleep during the nighttime.
22. The sense of smell.
24. The primate suborder that includes the lemurs, lorises, and related animals. This was the first suborder of primates to evolve.
26. A term referring to the ability to walk and run on two feet. By comparison, four footed animals are quadrupedal.
27. A very rare, mostly solitary species of Madagascar primates that have elongated, narrow fingers with claw-like compressed nails that are used, along with their long, curved, rodent-like incisor teeth, to get at grubs under tree bark and other hard to reach delicacies. They are the only members of the family Daubentoniidae.


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