Click for 65% off Shipping with Reptiles 2 You
Southwestern Center for Herpetological Research
Click for 65% off Shipping with Reptiles 2 You

Did primate vision develop to detect snakes?

By kingsnake.com · April 14, 2015 5:38 am

Human and other primates may have evolved keen eyesight to detect dangerous snakes. From NPR:
In a new paper published in the journal Primates, author William C. McGrew, a former professor of evolutionary primatology at the University of Cambridge, reports a high rate of venomous snake encounters by his team of primatologists seeking to observe unhabituated wild chimpanzees in Mount Assirik, Senegal, West Africa. McGrew's snake-encounter analysis in the paper Snakes as hazards: modelling risk by chasing chimpanzees is one test of what's known as the snake-detection theory of primate origins, a set of hypotheses that suggest we (along with other primates) owe certain features of our evolution to the risks posed by death and injury from snakes. During the 609 days that make up the core period of the analysis, McGrew and his team encountered a snake in Assirik, on average, once every 4.3 days — totaling 132 snake encounters. During the entire study period of four years, 142 snakes of 14 different species were identified. Of these, 64 percent were venomous: 33 cobras, 27 vipers and 24 rear-fanged snakes.
Read more here.

Comments

Add a comment

Click for 65% off Shipping with Reptiles 2 You
Click here to visit Classifieds
Click here to visit Classifieds
Site Tools