Wednesday, February 27, 2013

5 Primates and their Diets

I wrote the post in sections: a, b, c, and then d (pictures are out of order, but they are there).  Starting with my resources first.





Chimpanzee: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/chimpanzee/

Environment (a):

Lemur: lemurs rule the treetops of the tropical rainforest. Wild lemurs live only on Madagascar, a large island off the east coast of Africa, and on the nearby Comoros Islands.

Spider Monkey: Spider monkeys live in the tropical rain forests of Central and South America and far north in Mexico. They have long arms and gripping tails that enable them to move from branch to branch and tree to tree.

Baboon: Baboons are found in almost every habitat across Africa, multiple species of baboons live in savanna habitats and are called 'savanna' baboons, olive baboons also live in the tropical forests of West Africa, hamadryads baboons, which inhabit the semi-deserts of Ethiopia and the southwestern Arabian Peninsula.

Gibbon: The gibbon is a small sized ape, found inhabiting the dense jungles and tropical rain forests across southeast Asia. Gibbons belong to the lesser ape family, which are closely related to the great apes. Gibbons are arboreal animals, which means that they spend the majority of their lives in the trees. Living in the trees has its advantages for the gibbon as the gibbon has plenty of food and is also a safe distance above ground from predators.

Chimpanzee: Chimpanzees live in social communities of several dozen animals, and can habituate themselves to African rain forests, woodlands, and grasslands. Although they normally walk on all fours, chimpanzees can stand and walk upright. By swinging from branch to branch they can also move quite efficiently in the trees, where they do most of their eating.


Diet (b):

Lemur: Many lemurs are herbivores. They will eat almost everything the forest’s trees and plants have to offer. Ring-tailed lemurs eat fruits, flowers, buds, bark, sap, seeds, and leaves. Some species, such as the mouse lemurs, are omnivores. They eat insects, eggs, frogs, and lizards as well as plants.

Spider Monkey: Spider monkeys find food in the treetops and feast on nuts, fruits, leaves, bird eggs, and spiders.

Baboon: Baboons are omnivorous and opportunistic in their feeding, which means they will eat almost anything and will change their diets as the environment around them changes.  Baboon diets include a combination of fruit, flowers, seeds, pods, leaves, gum, and underground storage organs from a wide array of plant taxa as well as almost any small animal that they can catch, Baboons typically choose foods that are high in protein and lipids and low in fiber and potential toxins.

Gibbon: Gibbons are omnivorous animals meaning that they eat a mixture of both plant and animal matter. The main food of the gibbon is ripe fruit, which grow around them in the trees, and makes up around three quarters of the gibbon's diet. Gibbons also prey on insects, eggs, spiders and small birds and reptiles.

C: Chimps are generally fruit and plant eaters, but they also consume insects, eggs, and meat, including carrion. They have a tremendously varied diet that includes hundreds of known foods.

Environment Influence (c):

Lemur: Because the Lemurs live in trees, there diet with treetop leaves will always be there. I think the environment affected the diet because since they’re not usually on the ground all they have to eat are the tree leaves and the fruits that grow on the branches as well as the flowers that grow there too.

Spider Monkey: Because of evolution and the growth of the tails, allowing them to swing from treetops, the spider monkeys are allowed to swing from tree top to tree top gathering food that grow on the tree tops. Because the evolution, the food they hunt must be in the trees.

Baboon: The ability the baboon has, able to change their diet as the environment does, this makes the baboon the most adaptable to the environment. As long as they know the plant/ animal they are eating doesn’t have anything that will throw them off their diet, they will eat it.

Gibbon: Gibbons, like spider monkeys, live in trees, making their food hunting in their environment limited to the insects and fruits like are growing within the trees.  The environment affects their food because it’s mostly in the trees, never on the ground.

Chimpanzee: Because they can work on both the ground and in the trees, their environment hunting is wide. Being able to eat insects in both the trees and on the ground, the environment doesn’t affect their diet as much as it does to the lemurs, spider monkeys, and gibbons.

Photo of eating food (d):

 Lemur

 Chimpanzee

 Baboon

 Gibbon

 Spider Monkey

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Homologous and Analogous Structures


My findings of a homologous and an analogous structure between the human, the bat/bird, and the whale:

1a) A whale’s fin and a human’s hand share the same bones in their “arms” though they are used for slightly different uses, whales swimming, humans for everyday activities.

1b) The fin on a whale and the arm of a human consist of the same bones though one creature may have bigger ones. The fin has bigger bones and no fingers because to evolve in the water the whale had to learn how to swim and the human needed to evolve in a way that allowed the use of the fingers to pick things up and adapt the their environment. Not to mention typing, like how I am right now.

1c) From my research, the whale and human common ancestor was the bear. Bears that found no need for their legs turned into whales while after time the bear learned to be human. They all originate from a mammal before them, but over time changed to what they are today. (Source: http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110301215429AATeEBm)

1d) 

 2a) Two analogous structures would be the human and the bat/bird because they have the same bones, but one uses it for flying while the other uses it for everyday activities.

2b) The similarity is that of the whale and the human, except the bones structure is different in that a bat or birds bones must be light enough to allow them to lift themselves off the ground to fly. Their bone structure is also made so that the “fingers” are longer to allow the wings to grow in and become functional.

2c) I think that these two did share a common ancestor, but they didn’t become as close in evolution making them completely two different creatures.

2d)  

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

DNA mRNA Translation


This is my strand of DNA

CCGTGTTTACCAAGTTATATGGAATTGGGAGCGGAGTCCGTGACCGCAGATCTGGATT

Goodluck!

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Darwin's influence on evolution: Thomas Malthus

1) The person I think the had the most influence on Darwin's theory of evolution, in a positive way, was Thomas Malthus.

2) Thomas Malthus, an english parson, published an essay in 1797 called The Principle of Population. Darwin, along with Wallace, read this and began to form the hypothesis that animals and plants around the world also go through the same struggle with reproduction, as humans do. Darwin, realized after reading this essay that any species could easily multiple, but knowing how much food, shelter, and space there is in the world, that is why they don't do it. (Source: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/history_14)

3) The points that influenced Darwin's theory were that resources are limited. Knowing this, Darwin built his theory of natural selection. Though the potential to reproduce possible, humans and animals don't continue to reproduce because they know the resources around them are limited, and that population is the only thing that they can control.

4) I do think that Darwin could have formed his theory about Natural Selection without the essay because after some amount of time he would began to realize/think why there are a certain amount of living organisms and not more. Though it would have taken longer to form the theory, I think that Darwin could have figured it out.

5) The reactions of the publication of Darwin's book, The Origin of Species, caused a mix reaction to the church. There were strong beliefs for both sides, but around the time of Darwin's death they were in his favor because of the evidence that other scientist found that late proved Darwin's theory to be true. (Source: http://www.christs.cam.ac.uk/darwin200/pages/index.php?page_id=e6)