Answer 1:
It all depends on why they are studying them. If they are studying them mainly because they want to learn all about monkeys, they are called
Primatologists. If they are studying them to learn more about people, they may be
anthropologists or psychologists. If they are
interested in why monkeys behave the way they do,
they are probably behavioral ecologists. If they want to see how monkeys fit into their
environment, they are probably ecologists. I
could go on, but the big message is that there are
lots of reasons to study monkeys and people from
different fields of science are interested in
them. If you are interested in a career studying
monkeys, you can get there from several directions. |
Answer 3:
You might be surprised to know that many different kinds of scientists study monkeys (also known as primates). Scientists that study their biology (e.g. the type of food they eat, where they live, how many babies they have per year, how many different kinds of species there are) are called primate biologists or primatologists.
Many scientists are very concerned that primates will go extinct soon. Primates often rely on tropical rain forests for their survival and need large areas of undisturbed forest, and the rapid destruction of rainforests worldwide (South
America, Africa, Indonesia/Borneo) means that
many, many species are now endangered. They are
also hunted for food in these areas. The
scientists that are studying how to keep these
species from going extinct include primate
biologists, conservation biologists and tropical
ecologists. Scientists that study their social
networks (e.g. who's in charge, how groups are
formed, how individual primates interact, how they
behave when threatened, how they behave in
captivity, how they learn) include
anthropologists, behavior scientists,
psychologists and ethologists (animal behavior
scientists). Many of these types of scientists
also study human behavior, so there is some
overlap.
A famous ethologist who studies gorilla
behavior in Africa is Dr. Jane Goodall. Scientists
that study primate fossils and try to piece
together how primates have evolved over time
(including which of their ancestors evolved into
to humans) are called anthropologists,
paleoanthropologists or archaeologists. A famous archaeologist that studied primate evolution with the hopes of finding clues to human evolution is Mary Leakey. Click Here to return to the search form.
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