May The Best Primate Win!

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Phylum Porifera includes the sponges, also called sea sponges.

These animals are filter feeders that are bound to the sea bed in their adult forms, though some have free-swimming larva. Many species are important for building reefs. Their bodies consist of a mass of collagen jelly (called mesohyl) sandwiched between two main layers of cells. But they are not soft! Most sponges’ bodies are full of sharpened structural elements called spicules, which are made of either silica or calcium carbonate, so any predator biting into a sponge would get the same sensation as biting into shards of glass. Some sponges also have exoskeletons. Most sponges filter food particles via water flowing through their barrels and pores, but some sponges are carnivorous, using either sticky threads or barbed spicules to catch prey. Sponges may have been the first animals, and fossils of them date back to the Cambrian.

Propaganda under the cut:

Sunda flying lemur (Galeopterus variegatus)

Bearded emperor tamarin (Saguinus imperator subgrisescens)

This tiny, tiny tamarin is found in the wet forests where Brazil and Peru border each other. They eat fruit, flowers, fungus, and tree sap- but they’re apparently too lazy to dig their own holes in trees, so they wait for a different species to do it for them. And, of course, they have those magnificent moustaches.

Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus)

These large tree-dwelling apes are found only on the island of Borneo. They are highly sexually dimorphic, with older males growing large cheek flanges. They eat fruits, leaves, flowers, bark, honey, small animals like insects, spider webs, fungus, and soil. They build complex nests to sleep in, and have been observed using leafy makeshift ‘umbrellas’, sticks to obtain foods like ants, and leaves to hold spiny fruits.

Bearded emperor tamarin (Saguinus imperator subgrisescens)

This tiny, tiny tamarin is found in the wet forests where Brazil and Peru border each other. They eat fruit, flowers, fungus, and tree sap- but they’re apparently too lazy to dig their own holes in trees, so they wait for a different species to do it for them. And, of course, they have those magnificent moustaches.

Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus)

These large tree-dwelling apes are found only on the island of Borneo. They are highly sexually dimorphic, with older males growing large cheek flanges. They eat fruits, leaves, flowers, bark, honey, small animals like insects, spider webs, fungus, and soil. They build complex nests to sleep in, and have been observed using leafy makeshift ‘umbrellas’, sticks to obtain foods like ants, and leaves to hold spiny fruits.

Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata)

Beaten only by humans for the title of the furthest-north primate, this monkey lives in a huge range of climates on the islands of Japan, including snowy and mountainous regions. They are famous for their habit of spending time in hot springs to escape the cold. They are also rather intelligent, one group of macaques inventing the idea to wash their food before consumption. They eat a variety of foods, including leaves, fruits, bark, roots, insects, fish, soil, and fungus. Finally, the Japanese macaque is another species of monkey in which homosexuality has been documented; it has even been proposed that most female members of this species are bisexual!

Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus)

These large tree-dwelling apes are found only on the island of Borneo. They are highly sexually dimorphic, with dominant males growing large cheek flanges. They eat fruits, leaves, flowers, bark, honey, small animals like insects, spider webs, fungus, and soil. They build complex nests to sleep in, and have been observed using leafy makeshift ‘umbrellas’, sticks to obtain foods like ants, and leaves to hold spiny fruits.

Verreaux’s sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi)

These lemurs are very specialised for living in trees, eating mostly leaves and being capable of leaping ten metres from tree to tree. They also live in a variety of wet or dry forest habitats. Sifakas are so specialised for climbing they can’t walk on all fours like a ring-tailed lemur, nor can they stride bipedally like humans; instead, they move on the ground using an odd bipedal bounding motion.

Bearded emperor tamarin (Saguinus imperator subgrisescens)

This tiny, tiny tamarin is found in the wet forests where Brazil and Peru border each other. They eat fruit, flowers, fungus, and tree sap- but they’re apparently too lazy to dig their own holes in trees, so they wait for a different species to do it for them. And, of course, they have those magnificent moustaches.

Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus)

These large tree-dwelling apes are found only on the island of Borneo. They are highly sexually dimorphic, with dominant males growing large cheek flanges. They eat fruits, leaves, flowers, bark, honey, small animals like insects, spider webs, fungus, and soil. They build complex nests to sleep in, and have been observed using leafy makeshift ‘umbrellas’, sticks to obtain foods like ants, and leaves to hold spiny fruits.

Western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla)

These huge, powerful apes are found in the lowland tropical forests of Western Africa. They are highly sexually dimorphic, and dominant males are often called silverbacks for their light grey backs. They eat leaves, fruits, roots, tree bark, and occasionally small animals. They are also known to use tools, and famously Koko the gorilla was apparently able to communicate using sign language, although the extent to which she understood has been questioned by many scientists. I chose to use this subspecies because their full scientific name (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) is funny to me.

Red-shanked douc (Pygathrix nemaeus)

This fabulous-looking species is found in tropical, sometimes mountainous forests of Southeast Asia. They eat mostly leaves, and have a multi-chambered stomach which allows them to ferment their food, like a ruminant!

Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata)

Beaten only by humans for the title of the furthest-north primate, this monkey lives in a huge range of climates on the islands of Japan, including snowy and mountainous regions. They are famous for their habit of spending time in hot springs to escape the cold. They are also rather intelligent, one group of macaques inventing the idea to wash their food before consumption. They eat a variety of foods, including leaves, fruits, bark, roots, insects, fish, soil, and fungus. Finally, the Japanese macaque is another species of monkey in which homosexuality has been documented; it has even been proposed that most female members of this species are bisexual!

Bengal slow loris (Nycticebus bengalensis)

Slow lorises are nocturnal inhabitants of Southeast Asian forests. They’re also the only venomous primates, and one of the only groups of venomous mammals. They produce certain chemicals in a gland near their armpit, and others in their saliva; when mixed, either by licking their armpit or wiping their gland juice on their teeth, the chemicals combine to produce a noxious toxin.

This species is the largest of the slow lorises. The chemicals produced from their armpit gland may not just be for defence, but also for communicating information with other lorises via scent. It eats small animals, mostly insects, as well as fruit and tree sap.

Verreaux’s sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi)

These lemurs are very specialised for living in trees, eating mostly leaves and being capable of leaping ten metres from tree to tree. They also live in a variety of wet or dry forest habitats. Sifakas are so specialised for climbing they can’t walk on all fours like a ring-tailed lemur, nor can they stride bipedally like humans; instead, they move on the ground using an odd bipedal bounding motion.

Bearded emperor tamarin (Saguinus imperator subgrisescens)

This tiny, tiny tamarin is found in the wet forests where Brazil and Peru border each other. They eat fruit, flowers, fungus, and tree sap- but they’re apparently too lazy to dig their own holes in trees, so they wait for a different species to do it for them. And, of course, they have those magnificent moustaches.

Yellow-tailed woolly monkey (Lagothrix flavicauda)

This woolly monkey is an incredibly rare and elusive species, despite its relatively large size. It lives in the high-altitude cloud forests of the Andes mountains in Peru. In the last 200 years, only a few sightings of the species have been brought to scientific attention, and it was believed to have been extinct for most of the 19th century. But while it is now known to be extant, habitat loss means that it may not be for much longer.