Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians. Primates arose 85–55 million years ago first from small terrestrial mammals, which adapted to living in the trees of tropical forests: many primate characteristics represent adaptations to life in this challenging environment, including large brains, visual acuity, color vision, a shoulder girdle allowing a large degree of movement in the shoulder joint, and dextrous hands. Primates range in size from Madame Berthe's mouse lemur, which weighs 30 g (1 oz), to the eastern gorilla, weighing over 200 kg (440 lb). There are 376–524 species of living primates, depending on which classification is used. New primate species continue to be discovered: over 25 species were described in the 2000s, 36 in the 2010s, and three in the 2020s.
The aye-aye is a long-fingered lemur, a strepsirrhine primate native to Madagascar with rodent-like teeth that perpetually grow and a special thin middle finger.
Lemurs are wet-nosed primates of the superfamily Lemuroidea, divided into 8 families and consisting of 15 genera and around 100 existing species. They are endemic to the island of Madagascar. Most existing lemurs are small, have a pointed snout, large eyes, and a long tail. They chiefly live in trees and are active at night.
Chiromyiformes is an order of strepsirrhine primates that includes the aye-aye from Madagascar and its extinct relatives.
Canarium is a genus of about 100 species of tropical and subtropical trees, in the family Burseraceae. They grow naturally across tropical Africa, south and southeast Asia, Indochina, Malesia, Australia and western Pacific Islands; including from southern Nigeria east to Madagascar, Mauritius, Sri Lanka and India; from Burma, Malaysia and Thailand through the Malay Peninsula and Vietnam to south China, Taiwan and the Philippines; through Borneo, Indonesia, Timor and New Guinea, through to the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Palau.
Nosy Mangabe is a small island reserve located in Antongil Bay about 2 km offshore from the town of Maroantsetra in north-east Madagascar. it is accessible by small boat and is part of the larger Masoala National Park complex. It is a tropical rainforest national park for a species of lemur, the aye-aye. It lies close enough to Maroantsetra for a day trip, although an overnight stay is recommended for seeing the nocturnal aye-aye.
Metacheiromys is an extinct genus of palaeanodont mammal from the paraphyletic subfamily Metacheiromyinae within paraphyletic family Metacheiromyidae, that lived in North America during the early to middle Eocene.
The giant aye-aye is an extinct relative of the aye-aye, the only other species in the genus Daubentonia. It lived in Madagascar, appears to have disappeared less than 1,000 years ago, is entirely unknown in life, and is only known from subfossil remains.
Ambatovaky Special Reserve is a tropical rainforest and wildlife reserve in the north-east of Madagascar. It is designated by Bird Life International as an Important Bird Area for the large number of endemic species of birds.
Karanisia is an extinct genus of strepsirrhine primate from middle Eocene deposits in Egypt.
Lemurs, primates belonging to the suborder Strepsirrhini which branched off from other primates less than 63 million years ago, evolved on the island of Madagascar, for at least 40 million years. They share some traits with the most basal primates, and thus are often confused as being ancestral to modern monkeys, apes, and humans. Instead, they merely resemble ancestral primates.
Milne-Edwards's sifaka, or Milne-Edwards's simpona, is a large arboreal, diurnal lemur endemic to the eastern coastal rainforest of Madagascar. Milne-Edwards's sifaka is characterized by a black body with a light-colored "saddle" on the lower part of its back. It is closely related to the diademed sifaka, and was until recently considered a subspecies of it. Like all sifakas, it is a primate in the family Indriidae.
Lemurs were first classified in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus, and the taxonomy remains controversial today, with approximately 70 to 100 species and subspecies recognized, depending on how the term "species" is defined. Having undergone their own independent evolution on Madagascar, lemurs have diversified to fill many ecological niches normally filled by other types of mammals. They include the smallest primates in the world, and once included some of the largest. Since the arrival of humans approximately 2,000 years ago, lemurs have become restricted to 10% of the island, or approximately 60,000 square kilometers (23,000 sq mi), and many face extinction. Concerns over lemur conservation have affected lemur taxonomy, since distinct species receive increased conservation attention compared to subspecies.
Plesiopithecus is an extinct genus of early strepsirrhine primate from the late Eocene.
Primate families include 11 categories of this taxonomic rank, which include 57 genera and approximately 175 species. In attached list, there are shown in scientific (Latin) names of families and genera, with the usual names on the English and Bosnian language.
Propotto is an extinct, monotypic genus of early strepsirrhine primate from the early Miocene of Kenya. It contains one described species, Propotto leakeyi. Although long considered a pteropodid fruit-eating bat after spending a brief sojourn as a prehistoric relative of lorises, recent research shows it to be an extinct relative of the aye-aye.
