Primate taxonomy
Abstrak
Apes are no monkeys! The best way to insult a scientist working on chimpanzees is to say he/she is working with monkeys. We, humans, belong to the same family as the anthropoid (human-like) apes, also known as the "great" apes. No other animals are as close to us: at the DNA level we are 98.4 % identical to chimpanzees and bonobos. Here is a diagram of a primate evolutionary tree based on DNA comparisons. Humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) are classified as Hominoidae. Other members of this family are the four great apes: chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), bonobo (Pan paniscus), gorilla (Gorilla gorilla), and orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus). The Hominoid family also includes the "lesser" apes: gibbons and siamangs. No other primates are called apes: they are monkeys and prosimians. The Hominoids split off from the other primates (Old World monkeys, New World monkeys, and prosimians) an estimated 23 million years ago. The latest discoveries in paleontology make early hominids look ever more ape-like thus confirming the validity of comparisons of Homo sapiens with its "living links," the extant anthropoid apes. The split between them and us is now estimated to have occurred a "mere" 6 million years ago. Whereas paleontologists tend to focus on the last 3-4 million years marked by
Penulis (1)
C. Groves
Akses Cepat
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- 2018
- Bahasa
- en
- Total Sitasi
- 320×
- Sumber Database
- Semantic Scholar
- DOI
- 10.1002/9781118584538.ieba0405
- Akses
- Open Access ✓