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PRIMATES: the curious kinship    

Installation at SOApBOx gallery 1999

This work explores the systems and theories that science uses to help explain who we are, what our beginnings were and whom we may or may not be connected to in this world. 

Primates are the words used to describe us, and there is a list of characteristics, which some scientists believe can denote animals which belong to this group.

Of course human beings are the primate which first springs to mind, and are the measure that we often use when we consider what other animals may belong to this group.

Brisbane based scientist Jack Pettigrew, theorises that some non-human animals like the flying fox bat, could be included in the primate evolutionary group due to specific primate characteristics which they share with other acknowledged primates, like the oragutan, chimpanzee, bonobo, human, and gorilla.

This work explores the premise that the flying fox is a primate, and represents some of the characteristics that primates share. The scientific studies in molecular DNA have also confirmed close connections between the great apes and human beings; in fact it is stated that chimpanzees share 98.4 per cent of thier DNA with humans. Although there have been some studies on the flying fox genetic percentages, there has been no conclusive evidence to state primate connections that I have discovered.

Luella

Reference

J. D. Pettigrew (1991) 'Wings or Brain Convergent Evolution in the origins of Bats', Systematic Zoology, vol 40, no.2, p199-216

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