Hi all! Today we will be continuing our #Primates coverage, with the first in a series of themed threads by @ZoeMelvin at 20.15. Before then, I ( @IsabelleWinder) have a little bit of background info on the different groups of primates we met last night! #BangorDoesPrimates
One thing the #Primates show last night did really well was show off the amazing diversity of our close relatives. We saw everything from tiny bushbabies through to the largest primate of them all, the gorilla. #BangorDoesPrimates
We also jumped from continent to continent: we saw species from Madagascar, Africa, Asia and South America. How do they all fit together? The diagram above
shows the basic tree of #Primates. #BangorDoesPrimates

If you take a quick look at the tree, you'll see that all of the living species of #Primates fall on two main branches (I haven't shown the extinct ones). #BangorDoesPrimates
The first branch, shaded yellow (on the right) is called the 'Strepsirrhines'. It includes two groups, lemurs and lorises. #Primates #BangorDoesPrimates
Lemurs come from Madagascar (as the film suggests). There are ~100 species (103 according to Estrada et al. 2017, https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/1/e1600946) of which 87% are threatened #Primates #BangorDoesPrimates
The loris and galago group includes the bushbabies we saw yesterday on #Primates, and includes species from mainland Africa and Asia (but not Madagascar). #Primates #BangorDoesPrimates
The other main branch (blue below) has three major groups on it - and we're part of one of them! #Primates #BangorDoesPrimates
First to branch off were the tarsiers (pic below from https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/21491/9288932). Tarsiers are from southeast Asia, and have massive eyes. There are around a dozen species. #Primates #BangorDoesPrimates
Then there are the South-Central American monkeys, which include uakaris and capuchins. They live in South and Central America as the name suggests, and there are 171 species of which 63% are threatened/ https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/21491/9288932 #Primates #BangorDoesPrimates
And the final group, on the left of the tree as I drew it, is the African & Asian monkeys and apes. We're in that group ourselves, along with macaques, baboons and gorillas to mention a few we saw yesterday #Primates #BangorDoesPrimates
Hopefully this thread will have made it easier to see why #Primates covers so much ground, and just how diverse our close relatives are. Don't forget to check back tonight for a themed thread by @ZoeMelvin (at 20.15)! #Primates #BangorDoesPrimates