“But while some scientists believe these characteristics evolved together as early primates used their hands and eyes to pick fruit and other foods, Lynne Isbell, a professor of anthropology at the University of California Davis, believes they may have evolved to help primates evade snakes.You know where snakes can get real close up? On a mother fucking plane is where. That movie is going to be like 100 million years of evolution concentrated on a single LAX to DCA red-eye. It’s going to be a Sam Jackson/Snakes arms race!
‘A snake is the only predator you really need to see close up. If it's a long way away it's not dangerous,’ said Isbell, who has published her theory in the Journal of Human Evolution.
‘There's an evolutionary arms race between the predators and prey. Primates get better at spotting and avoiding snakes, so the snakes get better at concealment, or more venomous, and the primates respond.’”
I tried to read the paper itself but the Journal of Human Evolution and Huge Rip-Offs is charging $30 bucks. The abstract's up for free but I’ll be damned if I understand a single word in it past snake and monkey and ape...
Malagasy prosimians have never co-existed with venomous snakes, New World monkeys (platyrrhines) have had interrupted co-existence with venomous snakes, and Old World monkeys and apes (catarrhines) have had continuous co-existence with venomous snakes. The koniocellular visual pathway, arising from the retina and connecting to the lateral geniculate nucleus, the superior colliculus, and the pulvinar, has expanded along with the parvocellular pathway, a visual pathway that is involved with color and object recognition.In other words, GO SNAKES!
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