Some primates have evolved big brains because their extra brainpower helps them live and reproduce longer, an advantage that outweighs the demands of extra years of growth and development they spend reaching adulthood, anthropologists from Duke University and the University of Zurich have concluded in a new study.
The four investigators compared key benchmarks in the development of 28 different primate species, ranging from humans living free of modern trappings in South American jungles to lemurs living in wild settings in Madagascar.
"This research focused specifically on the balance between the costs and benefits of growing a large brain," said Nancy Barrickman, a graduate student in Duke's Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy, who is first and corresponding author of a report now posted online for a future print edition of the Journal of Human Evolution
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