The Missing Lemur Link

“The Missing Lemur Link. An Ancestral Step in the Evolution of Human Behaviour”: un libro sull’evoluzione dei lemuri. A cura di Ivan Norscia e Elisabetta Palagi

TITLE: The Missing Lemur Link. An Ancestral Step in the Evolution of Human Behaviour
AUTHORS: Ivan Norscia, Università degli Studi di Pisa; Elisabetta Palagi, Università degli Studi di Pisa
PUBLICATION PLANNED FOR: June 2016
AVAILABILITY: In stock
FORMAT: Hardback
ISBN: 9781107016088

Part of Cambridge Studies in Biological and Evolutionary Anthropology

Lemurs share a common distant ancestor with humans. Following their own evolutionary pathway, lemurs provide the ideal model to shed light on the behavioural traits of primates including conflict management, communication strategies and society building and how these aspects of social living relate to those found in the anthropoid primates. Adopting a comparative approach throughout, lemur behaviour is cross-examined with that of monkeys, apes and humans. This book reviews and expands upon the newest fields of research in lemur behavioural biology, including recent analytical approaches that have so far been limited to studies of haplorrhine primates. Different methodological approaches are harmonised in this volume to break conceptual walls between both primate taxa and different disciplines. Through a focus on the methodologies behind lemur behaviour and social interactions, future primate researchers will be encouraged to produce directly comparable results.

– Includes up-to-date research on lemur behaviour to allow researchers to assess the connection to modern and ancestral human behaviour traits
– Features boxes written by guest contributors connecting lemurs’ behaviour to other disciplines and animal groups
– Reviews over a decade of quantitative data on lemur and monkey social behaviour to reveal traits previously thought to be exclusive to primate behaviour

Ivan Norscia, Università degli Studi di Pisa
Ivan Norscia carries out research at the Natural History Museum, University of Pisa, Italy. He started investigating the behavioural ecology of lemurs in dry and wet forests of Madagascar and through his research has contributed to the redefinition of a lemur species (Avahi meridionalis). His research later expanded to the behaviour of monkeys, apes and humans.

Elisabetta Palagi, Università degli Studi di Pisa
Elisabetta Palagi is a department member of the Natural History Museum, University of Pisa, Italy. Her research centres upon lemur individual recognition and multimodal signalling, which has expanded to other primate and non-primate animals. Most recently, in conjunction with Ivan Norscia, she has adopted a cross-species comparison approach to shed light on the biological foundation of human behaviour.