Social pressures have selected for an extended juvenile period in primates

Primates are highly social animals. As such, they utilize a large repertoire of social skills to manage their complex and dynamic social environments. In order to acquire complex social skills, primates require an extended learning period. Here I perform a comparative analysis using independent contrasts to show that social pressures have Favored an extension in the proportion of time primates spend as juveniles. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited.