Locomotion and Posture

Abstract

Apart from marsupials and edentates, there is no order of mammals, living or fossil, which displays a greater diversity of locomotor and postural adaptations than extant primates. With body weight varying from about 100 grams to 200 kilograms, the Order Primates includes leapers, climbers, brachiators, knuckle-walkers and a variety of arboreal and terrestrial quadrupeds. Despite the interest which primate positional behaviour has engendered in anatomists, anthropologists and zoologists throughout this century, we still understand very little about the relationships between locomotor and postural behaviour on the one hand, and basic aspects of these animals’ biology, such as gross diet and use of forest structure on the other.