In primates, food and body size are closely related. Large species are leaf eaters, small species are insect eaters, and medium-sized species tend to favor fruit.*
This relationship between body size and diet is clearer in primates than it is in other mammals. The diversity of primate diets is due the variation in their digestive tracts.
■References (Books, papers, Web articles, etc.)
How Humans Evolved (Eighth Edition) Robert Boyd Joan B. Silk. W. W. Norton & Company; Eighth edition (December 1, 2017)
『サルの生涯、ヒトの生涯―人生計画の生物学』 デビッド・S・スプレイグ （京都大学学術出版会、2004）
『サルの食卓』 中川尚史 （平凡社、1994）
「食は社会をつくる：社会生態学的アプローチ」 中川尚史 （『霊長類学を学ぶ人のために』 第3章)所収 （世界思想社、1999））
*The metabolic rate of mammals, including primates, scales to the ¾ power of its body weight. Therefore, the more weight an animal has, the less energy it needs per unit weight. This means that small species need to eat nutritionally dense foods. However, there are not many insects high in the trees of tropical rainforests. Therefore insect-feeding primates living in such trees could not develop large bodies.
★If you interested in this text, please have the following ebook at hand. For that, Click on the URL below.
https://society-zero.com/icardbook/011/index.html
★This article is a piece of "knowledge card" that makes up iCardbook, "Evolution of Human Sociality(Juichi Yamagiwa, Shun Hongo)"
iCardbook, a card-type specialized book that organizes “Knowledge Cards” is a new form of book in the smartphone age.
■iCardbook Benefits:Good value for reading
・you can read it quickly in your pocket of time, e.g. commuting
・You can immediately understand the "drawing " in the author's head
・Amazon Prime members can read for free
◎About iCardbook(english)
https://society-zero.com/icard/icardbookenglish
◎About iCardbook(japanese)
https://society-zero.com/chienotane/archives/5067
■The References list of “Evolution of Human Sociality”
