496 



VERTEBRATE LIFE AND ORGANIZATION 



the nasal region has not been greatly reduced. The suborder Tarsioidea 

 in< hides a single living genus, Tarsius, oi the East Indies and Philip- 

 pines. Tarsius is a rai-sized animal with large eyes suited lor nocturnal 

 vision, antl elongated tarsals and digital pads to aid in hopping thiough 

 the tree tops. It, and the known iossil tarsioids, are too specialized to 

 be tlie ancestors oi other primates, but its flattened face and forward 

 turned eyes are the sort of advances over lemurs that we would expect 

 to find in the ancestors of the highest primate suborder, the Anthro- 

 poidea. Anilnopoids include the monkeys, great apes and man. All have 

 a relatively flat face, stereoscopic vision, the capacity to sit on their 

 haunches and examine objects with their hands, and an unusually large 



Figure 24.17. Representative carnivores and cetaceans. A, Raccoon; B, walrus; C, 

 the birth of a porpo.sc; D. the whalebone phites of a toothless whale han^ down from 

 the roof of the mo.uh, K, weasels in summer pelage. The porpoise ami whale are 

 of xrZ'i u' "'^'''^'^ carnivores. (A, B, D, E, courtesy of the American Museum 

 ot .Natural History; C, courtesy of Marine Studios.) 



