Zoo Activity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Zoo Activity - Essay Example Although the other placental mammals had a tendency to live in grasslands, marine and other environments, the adaptive niche for the primates was trees. According to the arboreal hypothesis, this provided numerous challenges and opportunities such as depth perception and binocular vision, climbing by utilising prehensile hands and feet instead of claws, varied diet resulted to omnivorous adaptation and longer life span, increased their intelligence and more elaborate social system which they required to cope with. 1. White-handed gibbon (Hylobates lar) White-handed gibbons are diurnal, natural aerial acrobats and are fairly awkward on the ground. The have long fingers and limbs, special thumbs and strong arms are specialised to the arboreal life in their forest home. Stewart and Harcourt (16-19) noted that as they swing from limb to limb they usually hook their fingers lightly over the branches. When they meet a break in the trees, they have the capability to leap to the next tree up to 25-30 feet away. Their intelligence in locomotion makes them quick and efficient when moving from feeding to escaping from predators. The morphology and behavior of white-handed gibbon With regard to its morphology, the white-handed gibbon lacks a tail and has a throat sac located beneath the chin. The average body mass for an adult is around 5.7 kilograms, and for the female it is around 5.3 kilograms.