Cercopithecoidea By: Kira Nishi-Beckingham

What is Cercopithecoidea? Cercopithecoidea is a family of mammals that actually means Old World Monkeys. Organisms in this family, like in all the other families, have specific characteristics that make them apart of this specific family.

CharacteristicsCercopithecoids all have tails, most of which are long. They all have a narrow nose and palate, and have legs that are the same length or longer than their arms. Cercopithecoids’ molars have two cusps (are bilophodont). Cercopithecoids are also laterally compressed with longer and narrower torsos and a narrow pelvis.

BiomesThe Cercopithecoids are found in around three biomes. Grassland, Tropical Rain Forest, and Temperate Deciduous Forest.

Food WebBaboons are one of the many species that make up the Cercopithecoidea family. Here is a food web showing a baboon and it’s transfer of energy. The baboon recieves energy from the grass, grasshoppers, and the acacia tree. It gives energy to the hyena and lion. The baboon is a secondary consumer.

CompetitionThe Cercopithecoidea family has a lot of competition for food as they are omnivores. Omnivores are organisms that eat plants and animals. Any organism that eats grass, trees, fruits, or insects are their competition. Even insects can be their competition if there are too many eating the grass!

Biodiversity

Cercopithecoids (Old World Monkeys) are closely related to New World Monkeys and Apes and Humans. However, they did branch off from the same species as Lemurs, Lorises, and Tarsiers.

Adaptive Radiation

From the family Cercopithecoidea, there are two subfamilies. These are the Cercopithecines and Colobines. Colobines have longer tails, longer legs, short thumbs, a complex stomach that has four chambers, a deeper jaw, and more space between their eyes, Cercopithecines on the other hand have short tails, legs the same length as their arms, a simple stomach with only one chamber, and pouches in their cheeks used to store food. In each subfamily there are two types, African and Asian. In each of those groups, there are many different genuses.

AdaptationsColobines (one of the subfamilies) have four stomachs that work similar to a cow’s. These allow the monkeys to gain a lot of nutrients from leaves, which primates are not usually able to do. Cercopithecines, the other subfamily, have

cheek pouches called buccal pouches which are able to hold about a stomach full. These pouches are good for grabbing food so they can leave and eat somewhere safe. This also helps prevent competition among the groups as if they can grab a meal, they won’t have to share.

Evolution

All of these families came from the same organism at one point. As you can see, it started off the same, but very quickly branched off into three groups. The Old World monkeys came from the same branch as the New World monkeys as well as Apes and humans.

Primary and Secondary SuccessionThe organisms in the Cercopithecoidea family heavily rely on plants as their source of food and energy. They eat plants which would be gone if a succession happened as well as organisms that rely on plants as their main source of energy. If a primary and/or secondary succession happened, the organisms in the Cercopithecoidea family would not be able to survive that area.

Secondary Succession

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