Why Monkey and Apes Have Colorful Faces
0 (0 Likes / 0 Dislikes)
Have you ever wondered why monkeys and apes have such colorful faces?
Primate species living complex social groups
and experts think that monkeys and apes use spatial features as a way to recognize all the members of the group.
Researchers from the University of California Los Angelos for UCLA
compared to complexity official trades across different primate species
and put the data alongside information about group size
and certain habitat factors
to see if there was any correlation.
Michael Farrell, an evolutionary biologist at UCLA who led the study said:
faces are really important to how monkeys and apes can tell one another apart.
We think the color patterns have to do both with the importance of telling
individuals at your own species apart from closely related species
and social communication among members at the same species
Results of the study show that Old World monkeys and apes in Africa
in Asia living in larger groups have more facial diversity than living in smaller social groups
However, a previous study found that:
for New World monkeys living in Central and South America the opposite is true and species living in larger groups had more similar faces
for New World monkeys living in Central and South America the opposite is true and species living in larger groups had more similar faces