lemurs

College Kids and Monkeys About Equal on Math

...s a Duke University expert. Elizabeth Brannon, an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke, studies how human adults and infants, lemurs and monkeys think about numbers without using language. Her goal is to identify brain systems that support number sense and determine how this cogniti...

Pre-verbal number sense common to monkeys, babies, college kids

...ear of life, can tell the difference between quantities." She runs about 500 babies per year through her testing lab at Duke, as well as macaques, lemurs and the odd undergraduate. Most of the experiments involve computer touch-screens and sets of brightly colored dots. After seeing the same number ...

lemurs in Biological News

New theory on why male, female lemurs same size

When it comes to investigating mysteries, Sherlock Holmes has nothing on Rice University biologist Amy Dunham. In a newly published paper, Dunham offers a new theory for one of primatology's long-standing mysteries: Why are male and female lemurs the same size? In most primate species, males ha...

Three new species of lemurs identified

Researchers have identified three new species of lemurs, the small, big-eyed primates native to the island of Madagascar. In a study published today in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology, a team of researchers from Madagascar and Europe identified new species of lemurs based on dif...

CU-Boulder study shows 53 million-year-old high Arctic mammals wintered in darkness

...f Natural History in Pittsburg discovered fossil alligator jaw bones. Since then, fossils of aquatic turtles, giant tortoises, snakes and even flying lemurs -- one of the earliest forms of primates -- have been found on Ellesmere Island, said Eberle. The new Geology study also foreshadows the impacts ...

Wildlife Conservation Society discovers 'Planet of the Apes'

...d be a rallying cry for the world that we can protect other vulnerable and endangered species, whether they be gorillas in Africa, tigers in India, or lemurs in Madagascar." In all, the researchers estimated a total of 125,000 gorillas in just this northern Congo area. Seventy three thousand came from t...

Little teeth suggest big jump in primate timeline

...t 9-thousandths of a square inch in size, the teeth are about 54.5 million years old and suggest these early primates were no larger than modern dwarf lemurs weighing about 2 to 3 ounces. Studies of the shape of the teeth suggest these small animals could live on a fruit and insect diet, according to the re...

New population of highly threatened greater bamboo lemur found in Madagascar

...ed the existence of a population of greater bamboo lemurs more than 400 kilometers (240 miles) from the only... its survival. The discovery of the distinctive lemurs with jaws powerful enough to crack giant bamboo, t...ieved but were unable to prove that greater bamboo lemurs ( Prolemur simus ) lived in the Torotorofotsy area...

Big brains arose twice in higher primates

... larger brained fossil Killikaike found in Argentina and described two years ago. It is probable that brain size also increased independently in the lemurs of Madagascar, as well as in the apes (of which humans are the extreme case) and the cercopithecid monkeys of Africa and Asia." ...

Primate's scent speaks volumes about who he is

...s undoubtedly richer than we can imagine. "All lemurs make use of scent," she said. "The diversity of gl...d Marylne Boulet focused solely on male ringtailed lemurs living at the Duke Lemur Center ( http://lemur.duk...d directly onto a tree trunk to let any interested lemurs know who he is and what he's made of. Scent no...

Slowly-developing primates definitely not dim-witted

...ed key benchmarks in the development of 28 different primate species, ranging from humans living free of modern trappings in South American jungles to lemurs living in wild settings in Madagascar. "This research focused specifically on the balance between the costs and benefits of growing a large brain,"...

Ancient lemur's little finger poses mystery

...ch as baboons, do today. The discovery underscores the amazing diversity of lemurs that existed more than 2,000 years ago, when lemurs of all types ranged from pocket-sized to the size of gorillas, Lemelin note...