Primates are an order (Primates) of eutherian mammals characterized by a suite of derived traits associated with arboreal locomotion and enhanced sensory and cognitive capacities. Defining features include grasping extremities with opposable thumbs and, in many taxa, opposable great toes; nails instead of claws on most digits; a postorbital bar or plate; forward-facing orbits enabling stereoscopic vision; and a relatively enlarged brain, especially in regions mediating vision and complex behavior. The order encompasses strepsirrhines (lemurs, lorises), tarsiers, and haplorhine simians (monkeys and apes, including humans), and is a core model group in evolutionary biology, comparative anatomy, neurobiology, and behavioral ecology.
The largest group of wild chimpanzees known to scientists has permanently split in two. In a study published in Science, researchers from the University of Texas at Austin and other institutions report the first clearly documented ...
Plants & Animals
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Some animals can regrow lost body parts. Salamanders and frog tadpoles can rebuild entire limbs after amputation. Mammals cannot. For decades, biologists have tried to understand why. Now a team led by Can Aztekin at EPFL ...
Plants & Animals
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New research from the University of Portsmouth has found that great apes exhibit exactness in mimicking one another's facial expressions in social contexts. The study, published in Scientific Reports, explored how orangutans ...
Evolution
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Sometimes, different organisms can evolve the same ability independently, a process called parallel evolution. A new study from Osaka Metropolitan University (OMU) has found that dragonflies sense red light similarly to mammals, ...
Evolution
4 hours ago
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A study published in Cell Research advances a central idea in stem cell biology by identifying a checkpoint that controls the identity of many different types of stem cells across developmental stages. For nearly two decades, ...
Cell & Microbiology
19 hours ago
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A new Yale study of flatworms, a species with the unique ability to regenerate, reveals that disruptions in the body's internal map of cellular organization may play a part in age-related decline.
Cell & Microbiology
Apr 8, 2026
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Just because a female olive baboon has mated with a specific male doesn't mean he will be the father of her offspring. According to a new study published in PLOS Biology, mate selection continues long after copulation as ...
A quick heart trace taken during a warm-up trot could identify racehorses at risk of cardiac arrhythmias during high-intensity exercise, according to a new study led by the University of Surrey. The screening method analyzes ...
Veterinary medicine
Apr 4, 2026
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Newly discovered fossils have given scientists their first real glimpse of when Earth made a crucial transition from plants and unrecognizably simple animals to the complex creatures that took over the world and would eventually ...
Evolution
Apr 4, 2026
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A research team led by Zhen-Xing Endowed Professor Jian Yang at the School of Life Sciences, Westlake University, has developed a pangenome-informed genome assembly (PIGA) method. By combining a cost-effective hybrid sequencing ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Apr 3, 2026
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