My Primate Family Tree, Edinburgh Zoo
- Images and text by artist Russell Dempster
“I was approached a while back by Edinburgh Zoo to design ‘My Primate Family Tree’ for the Living Links department of the zoo. It was to be an educational mural to show a few representatives from the hundreds of living primates, and tell us how closely related we are to each with the bonus of being able to take part in the picture and then completing the link. It fills an outside space of 2.3m x 3m. Every monkey and ape was drawn individually and all pieced together at the final artwork stage and then printed onto 3 panels.
The base of the tree represents the evolutionary origin of primates about 65 million years ago. The Capuchin and Squirrel monkeys on the bottom left represent the primates of the ‘New World’ (The Americas) that split from other evolving primates about 35 million years ago. Next, the Gelada Baboon, Japanese Macaque and Diana Monkey on the top left represent the ‘Old World’ monkeys of Africa and Asia that split from the apes shown on the right about 25 million years ago. Our closest relative is the Chimpanzee, then it’s the Gorilla and then the Orang-utan. These great apes and ourselves are a family that share a common ancestor about 14 million years ago.”
For more information about the divergence of humans and apes see:
- Langergraber, K.E. et al. 2012. “Generation times in wild chimpanzees and gorillas suggest earlier divergence times in great ape and human evolution,” PNAS 109(39):15716–15721
- Pontzer, H. 2012. ”Overview of Hominin Evolution,” Nature Education Knowledge 3(10):8 (open access)
“The music is played with the heart and is felt with the soul”
This is a picture of a brazilian kid who was part of the “cultural group of reggae”, playing his instrument in the funeral of his mentor who saved him from an environment of poverty and crime. He was rescued from the street.
Tippi Benjamine Okanti Degré, daughter of French wildlife photographers Alain Degré and Sylvie Robert, was born in Namibia. During her childhood she befriended many wild animals, including a 28-year old elephant called Abu and a leopard nicknamed J&B. She was embraced by the Bushmen and the Himba tribespeople of the Kalahari, who taught her how to survive on roots and berries, as well as how to speak their language.
How I wish I grew up.
I second this. Also, wasn’t going to reblog at first, but then I saw that frog and I about died. This is so perfect. I want to re-do my childhood.
She’s so cute, too.
Enjoy!
So rad! More bmx videos need to be this good (y)
Miyamoto Musashi Documentary
booty booty booty booty rocking every pear
Nobody understands how funny i find this
fuq wat if he miss
I spent the later part of this week working on this friendly little Sloth.
Very happy with the finished product, and I hope you like it too!
Also, here is a video about Sloths, with the quote ”slipperier than a greased pig”
