Question

Modern primates are characterized by arboreal adaptations, including:

A) Reduced limb flexibility to navigate the ground more efficiently.
B) Grasping hands and feet with opposable thumbs.
C) Enhanced sense of smell for ground-based foraging.
D) Decreased binocular vision to focus on distant objects.

Answer 1

All primate species have adaptations for climbing trees. These adaptations include a rotating shoulder joint, a wide separation between the big toe and the other toes, and stereoscopic vision. Other characteristics of primates include large brains, modified claws, and an upright posture.

Step-by-step explanation:

All primate species have adaptations for climbing trees, as they all descended from tree-dwellers, although not all species are arboreal. This arboreal heritage of primates resulted in hands and feet that are adapted for brachiation, or climbing and swinging through trees. These adaptations include, but are not limited to a rotating shoulder joint, a big toe that is widely separated from the other toes and thumbs that are widely separated from fingers (except humans), which allow for gripping branches, and stereoscopic vision, two overlapping visual fields, which allows for the depth perception necessary to gauge distance.

Other characteristics of primates are brains that are larger than those of many other mammals, claws that have been modified into flattened nails, typically only one offspring per pregnancy, and a trend toward holding the body upright.