The social climbers, you will find out about some of the characteristics that make them so like us: their physiology, complex social interactions, large brains and intelligence. This is the ninth course in the Studying mammals series.

Course learning outcomes

After studying this course, you should be able to:

• identify the charactistics of primates and explain the main differences between the two suborders, prosimians and anthropoids
• describe the detection of colour and estimation of distance in primates and explain the advantages of stereoscopic trichromatic vision
• discuss the various types of communication seen in anthropoids and explain how playback experiments contribute to understanding vocal communication
• compare and contrast adaptations in primates with adaptations in other mammals
• compare and contrast how species reduce the risk of predation and avoid competition with other species.