/ English Dictionary |
PRIMATES
Pronunciation (US): | (GB): |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
An animal order including lemurs and tarsiers and monkeys and apes and human beings
Synonyms:
order Primates; Primates
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("Primates" is a kind of...):
animal order (the order of animals)
Meronyms (members of "Primates"):
primate (any placental mammal of the order Primates; has good eyesight and flexible hands and feet)
Anthropoidea; suborder Anthropoidea (monkeys; apes; hominids)
Prosimii; suborder Prosimii (not used in all classifications; in some classifications considered coextensive with the Lemuroidea; in others includes both Lemuroidea and Tarsioidea)
Adapid; Adapid group (extinct small mostly diurnal lower primates that fed on leaves and fruit; abundant in North America and Europe 30 to 50 million years ago; their descendents probably include the lemurs; some authorities consider them ancestral to anthropoids but others consider them only cousins)
Lemuroidea; suborder Lemuroidea (Lemuridae; Lorisidae; Daubentoniidae; Indriidae; used in some classifications instead of Prosimii; in others considered a subdivision of Prosimii)
Strepsirhini; suborder Strepsirhini (in some classifications either coextensive with the Lemuroidea or comprising the true lemurs)
Omomyid; Omomyid group (extinct tiny nocturnal lower primates that fed on fruit and insects; abundant in North America and Europe 30 to 50 million years ago; probably gave rise to the tarsiers; some authorities consider them ancestral to anthropoids but others consider them only cousins)
suborder Tarsioidea; Tarsioidea (in some classifications assigned to the suborder Prosimii)
Holonyms ("Primates" is a member of...):
Eutheria; subclass Eutheria (all mammals except monotremes and marsupials)
Context examples:
The Ebola virus can cause severe illness and death in people and other primates.
(Genetics of the 2014 Ebola Outbreak, NIH)
It has been suggested that humans are uniquely susceptible to Alzheimer's, potentially because of genetic differences from other primates, changes to the human brain during evolution, and longer lifespans.
(New research detects Alzheimer's disease markers in nonhuman primates, National Science Foundation)
Filoviridae infect primates, pigs and bats in nature and are a causitive agent of viral hemorrhagic fevers in humans and primates.
(Filoviridae, NCI Thesaurus)
The Menstrual Cycle involves regularly recurring hormonal changes and physiologic endometrial changes during the reproductive period in human females, and some primates, and culminates in partial sloughing of the endometrium (menstruation) in the absence of fertilization.
(Menstrual cycle, NCI Thesaurus)
Specific regions of the neocortex are also known to differ greatly between humans and nonhuman primates.
(An Atlas of the Developing Human Brain, NIH)
Although rodents and primates rely on different sensory cues to recognize each other, the same gene appears to be involved in processing that social information.
(Oxytocin affects facial recognition, NIH)
While there have been age-related studies of great apes, the profound memory impairment found in Alzheimer's patients has not yet been demonstrated in nonhuman primates.
(New research detects Alzheimer's disease markers in nonhuman primates, National Science Foundation)
The neocortex is smooth in rodents; in humans and non-human primates, it’s elaborately folded.
(An Atlas of the Developing Human Brain, NIH)
As a part of their research to understand the evolution of the human brain and how it differs from those of other primates, scientists from Kent State University discovered proteins associated with Alzheimer's disease — believed to be unique to humans — in a sample of brains of aged chimpanzees.
(New research detects Alzheimer's disease markers in nonhuman primates, National Science Foundation)