The Gibbons: New Perspectives On Small Ape Socioecology And Population Biology (developments In Primatology: Progress And Prospects)
by Susan Lappan /
2009 / English / PDF
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It is a great honor to be asked to introduce this exciting new
volume, having been heavily involved in the first comprehensive
synthesis in the early 1980s. Gibbons are the most enthralling of
primates. On the one hand, they are the most appealing animals,
with their upright posture and body shape, facial markings,
dramatic arm-swinging locomotion and suspensory postures, and
devastating duets; on the other hand, the small apes are the most
diverse, hence biologically valuable and informative, of our
closest relatives. It is hard for me to believe that it is 40 years
to the month since I first set foot on the Malay Peninsula to start
my doctoral study of the siamang. I am very proud to have followed
in the footsteps of the great pioneer of primate field study,
Clarence Ray Carpenter (CR or Ray, who I was fortunate to meet
twice, in Pennsylvania and in Zurich), first in Central America (in
1967) and then in Southeast Asia. It is 75 years since he studied
howler monkeys on Barro Colorado Island in the Panama Canal Zone.
It is 70 years since he studied the white-handed gibbon in
Thailand.
It is a great honor to be asked to introduce this exciting new
volume, having been heavily involved in the first comprehensive
synthesis in the early 1980s. Gibbons are the most enthralling of
primates. On the one hand, they are the most appealing animals,
with their upright posture and body shape, facial markings,
dramatic arm-swinging locomotion and suspensory postures, and
devastating duets; on the other hand, the small apes are the most
diverse, hence biologically valuable and informative, of our
closest relatives. It is hard for me to believe that it is 40 years
to the month since I first set foot on the Malay Peninsula to start
my doctoral study of the siamang. I am very proud to have followed
in the footsteps of the great pioneer of primate field study,
Clarence Ray Carpenter (CR or Ray, who I was fortunate to meet
twice, in Pennsylvania and in Zurich), first in Central America (in
1967) and then in Southeast Asia. It is 75 years since he studied
howler monkeys on Barro Colorado Island in the Panama Canal Zone.
It is 70 years since he studied the white-handed gibbon in
Thailand.