Re: Primate meat consumption

From: Mario Petrinovich (mario.petrinovic1_at_zg.htnet.hr)
Date: 07/26/04 

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 08:15:36 +0100

Ray Audette :
> All Primates eat meat. The most primitive types (Tarsiers)are purely
> carnivorous, eating no vegetable material at all, eating only insects
> like the insectivor mammals that are the precursors to all Primates.
> Others spend much of their time gathering insects from the fur of
> their fellows ( grooming) often spending more time at this than fruit
> gathering.

        I would just skip this part. Which was obviously written to make
impression that all primates were eating meat, are eating meat, and will eat
meat. Amen. This is wrong impression. Here we are talking about monkeys. As
far as I know, monkeys are roughly separated into two groups. Fruit eating,
and leaf eating. There is no grooup of insect eating. And even no group of
meat eating.

> Jane Goodall became famous for being the first to document
> the hunting behavior of chimps as they organizied themselves to hunt
> monkeys.

        Jane Goodall is the same case. Searching for any opportunity to
paint chimps as monsters, strong, deadly animals, which are capable to
survive on the ground, because they are so mighty. In reality, it is baboons
who are monsters, because of their big groups, big canines, big aggression.
And this is what we actaully see. Baboons on the ground, and chimps close to
trees. Everyting other than that, is just a false imagination. Trying to
make something that doesn't exist.
        I also did see chimps hunting, on several films. This goes like
this. Something like 10 chimps surround one tree with a group of small
monkeys. Monkeys escape. All except a mother with a baby. She has hard time
to escape because she has a baby. Now, chimps surrounds her, and grab her
baby. And then chew that baby. But, they cannot swallow, they are only
chewing it. At the end, meat finishes all around, nothing goes to their
stomachs. Now, you can stretch killing of a baby of some small monkey, and
chewing its body, to byblical proportions. After all, this is a killing, and
after all chewing is on the way to eating. But, if we look that way, cat is
the same as cow. It has four legs, heat and tail. They are the same. No.
Actually, baboons are on the way to meat eating. Only they met all
preconditions for it. And they are nothing like chimps. Or humans. They are
more like dogs. However you try to turn it upside-down. And no. If you want
to turn monkey into a meat-eater, you are not turning him into a human. You
are turning him into a good old carnivore. A logical thing. There is no
other way.

> Among more advanced Primates, gut morphology ( see references to "the
> expensive tissue hypothesis" in the bibliography on my website)is
> perhaps the best indicator of the percentage of meat that each species
> eats. Those with the smallest large intestines ( capuchins and
> baboons ) eat the most meat. Human large/small intestine ratios are
> actually closer to wolves than to even these monkeys as in Nature
> omnivorous wolves and humans eat exactly the same diet ( perhaps the
> reason they domesticated us).

        Again, wrong. A human can give wolf its meal. And wolf will eat it.
But, if wolf gives human wolf's meal, not one human will touch it.
        And, gut ratio is also wrong. In Cambridge Human Evolution, on page
63 you have a "Multidimensional plot of indices for surface areas of
stomach, small intestine and caecun + colon for 80 primates and other
mammals", and there is clearly shown that primates are in their own group of
frugivores.

> Gut ratios indicating meat consumption are also mirrored in the shape
> of the hand in each species. Those who eat the most meat ( capuchins,
> baboons, tarsiers)have the most human-like hands - much more like ours
> than any ape species. A good grasp is very important when one's food
> is trying to escape. Some species of gibbons for instance, whose diet
> is far less carnivorous than ours, have no thumbs at all.

        There is a reason for that gibbons thumbless hand, and this has
nothing to do with meat eating. The most dexterous hand is that of gelada
baboon, who is not eating meat. Geladas are just friendly cows. Another
stretching to the end of the Universe.

> Of course the feature that most seperates humans from apes is our
> lopsided brains. Hominid skulls are longitudinaly asymetrical even in
> the most primitive types. This results in extreme eye dominance
> giving hominids a unique evolutionary advantage - the ability to aim a
> thrown object, allowing a man with a rock or sharp stick to kill any
> animal on earth ( something a tiger cannot do). The major advantage
> of bipedialism is that it frees our hands to carry such projectiles
> and allows humans to run further than any animal except wolves ( the
> only others species capable of runing a 26 mile marathon). Our lack of
> fur and unique sweat glands provide the cooling system necessary to
> accomplish such a feat. In warm climates, humans can outrun even dogs
> because of this unique cooling system ( the reason the Iditerod must
> be run in Alaska in winter). Ray Audette

        Please. This is just stretching like Hell. Humans do hunt that way
(buy exosting an animal), but only large animals in the hottest regions.
Nowhere else. Because only in this environment, and with large animals, a
preconditions are met. And this is in today's time, when humans have weapons
to defend themselves. Presumming in the past they had the same weapons. But
not that much in the past, as much humans are bipedal. -- Mario

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