Why are nonhuman primates studied, and what kinds of research are conducted?
For the most part, nonhuman primates are research subjects because they are so similar to humans, and the principal reason for this similarity is simple: humans *are* primates. Current ideas are that the first primates appeared more than 60 million years ago. In contrast, the common ancestor of humans and African apes lived only about 5-8 million years ago; so, for more than 50 million years, humans and the African apes have shared primate ancestry. Shared ancestry is a major reason why human and nonhuman primates have many characteristics in common — tool use, long-lasting social relationships, and complex communication systems. By learning about nonhuman primates we may come to learn more about ourselves. For example, humans walk upright, on two limbs — we are bipedal. Why might humans have evolved to be bipedal, when the vast majority of nonhuman primates are quadrupedal? Individuals of certain nonhuman primate species, however, are bipedal for some activities. By studying those s
