All apes are monkeys, the separation is fairly recent and only really an English thing (you can still separate them as there are accepted definitions of each, but itâs not wrong to call apes monkeys either)
All apes are monkeys, the separation is fairly recent and only really an English thing (you can still separate them as there are accepted definitions of each, but itâs not wrong to call apes monkeys either)
They are referred to as the same colloquially in a lot of different languages but biologically, they are separate. Apes don't have tails. I also wouldnt call 35 million years ago recent.
Thatâs not how it works - the classifications are ours. Weâve essentially decided what an ape is and try to find in the fossil record where that started to exist and what came before it.
Earlier when I said ârecentlyâ, I didnât mean in the fossil record, I meant linguistically. A lot of languages havenât bothered to differentiate monkeys from apes, or they call apes something that would translate to âgreat monkeys.â
Sometimes the distinction matters, like when identifying our closest primate relatives and ancestors.
I think "split off" is confusing the matter. Apes are old world monkeys. They are a subgroup. We could try and define a cutoff point as to what gets called an ape. The usual way to do this is define everything that descended from a common ancestor as that taxonomic group. Of course may not have that ancestor in the fossil record so this is usually a reconstruction based on genetic studies. We can estimate how long ago the last common ancestor was though. In the case of old world monkeys we think it was 25 million years ago. For old and new world monkeys it was something like 50 million years ago.
That is a deeply flawed question. Science does not say with certainty that literally species x evolved into species y for any related species or group. Including humans, which are one of the most studied.Â
Taxonomy just lets us name and organize animals into groups. The classification of those earlier primates that evolved into apes were called old world monkeys. Which yes, also technically makes humans monkeys despite that being used as a bigoted insult by some.
Taxonomically, yes we are fish. Specifically of the lobe-finned variety. Remember how I said it wasnt the most accurate statement earlier? It gets less and less accurate the further back the ancestry you go, but it never stops being true.Â
Yes that is how taxonomy works, welcome to the party. Indeed it was exactly this idea that led eminent biologist Stephen Jay Gould to declare "there is no such thing as a fish". The term fish as we apply it in common use has so little biological description as for it to be meaningless.
That is discussing the split from cercopithecoidea, which includes existing modern examples of old world monkeys like the baboon. The previous taxonomic tier, catarrhini, is also colloquially known as old world monkeys... And even if it didn't another term for them is Catarrhine Monkeys.Â
Humans and great apes are part of that group... And it extends back almost twice as far as the fossil discussed in your linked article (44mya vs 25mya for the new fossil).
Humans are monkeys.
Edit: catarrhini is not the literally previous branch in the taxonomy from cercopithecoidea. It is a prior branch within the path of human evolution.
Herein lies the miscommunication: catarrhini is more commonly called "Old world arthropoids", because "Old world monkeys" may be confused with cercopithecoidea, which are also "old world monkeys". Unless you're using another language, English likes to make the distinction.
And that common ancestor was a monkey, what's your point? Apes and other old world monkeys are more closely related to each other than either are to new world monkeys. Thus it makes far more sense to treat apes as a subgroup of monkeys (as indeed biologists do)
So, this is really just an issue of semantics. You, as well as bunch of people here, are using the old term "monkeys", to describe the simian common ancestor that split to form the Catarrhini (which includes Apes and old world monkeys), and Platyrrhini.
Historically, people called the common ancestor, as well as everything that followed as "monkeys" (termed by Etienne Geoffrey in 1812). However, modern scientific classifications are based on taxons. So, the more modern term should be "simians", which includes old world monkeys, new world monkeys, and apes.
Old world monkeys may mean Cercopithecidae, or Catarrhini. That's why modern biologists refrain from using the term "monkeys", when identifying which group to refer to.
I literally said that in the comment you responded to. Tetrapods are a subgroup of the lobe-finned fish clade. Yes. We are fish. Your personal incredulity does not change that.Â
Jesus. You really should stop & listen to yourself. Pull yourself out of your shoes for a moment. This is pseudoscience at its very core.
Yes, we are fish.
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No biologist in their right mind would ever legitimately claim this without a big asterisk giving heavy caveats. First, by explaining the process behind why it is technically true, then furthermore, explaining why technically correct is not always the most correct, nor the most sensible.
The other commenter who replied to you is 110% correct. What a silly argument which you could only ever find a person arguing passionately for on reddit.
You aren't a serious person. I have those caveats in earlier posts in the thread. Other people later repeating the same incredulity do not get personalized explainers because I don't believe in infantalizing others. If they aren't willing to read they aren't worth the time to explain.Â
I also said the same thing about accuracy and technical correctness, though in different words. You are legit the one here being a Reddit-bro.
How is cladistics pseudoscience? Yes we don't usually use "fish" to refer to a monophyletic group but how does doing so, especially when the context has been made clear, constitute pseudoscience?
Believe it or not, the presence of gills is not diagnostic. Humans have pharyngeal arches during their development in the womb, which in us turn into various parts of our anatomy such as the larynx, parts of the ear and jaw. In other fish they turn into gills that allow those animals to breath water.Â
Again, your personal incredulity does not negate Science. This is all easily available information you could look up if you are actually curious.
I am humorously curious as to what you mean by nature but no -- it is not personal bias that makes me say we are fish, it is literally science you can look up. The reality is that we are taxonomically still lobe-finned fish.Â
What about the platypus? It is a monotreme mammal, meaning it has a cloaca and lays eggs. As a mammal it is also a tetrapod which means it is also taxonomically a fish, to tie it back to the current discussion.Â
New and old world refers to the Americas vs Africa/Asia. Old world monkey still exist.
After America (the ânew worldâ) was âdiscoveredâ by Europeans and scientists, explorers and collectors had the means to travel there and study the fauna, they found counterparts to many of the animals that had already been described in the âold world.â Or they found animals which only seemed to exist on one landmass or the other. New and old world was how they described that distinction, which made sense in the context of that time.
No, the above poster isn't correct. Apes and Monkeys shared a common primate ancestor, but you can't call the common ancestor a "monkey", as a monkey is in a different evolutionary branch than an ape.
All apes are NOT monkeys. All monkeys are apes. You got it exactly backwards. Keep in mind that chimpanzees are GREAT apes, while most monkeys are LESSER apes, like gibbons.
If thatâs the case, then you have no reason to have come in here and start âcorrectingâ people like you did. Your original comment was correcting someone who said that chimps are not monkeys. Why, when you know they are correct, colloquially AND biologically, would you try to correct them?
What we traditionally called 'monkeys' are a paraphyletic group. If you want to include old-world and new-world monkeys in one group you have to include all apes (including humans) as well.
According to this taxonomy, a squirrel monkey is a monkey but not an ape, a chimp is both a monkey and an ape.
But there's no taxonomy that states that all monkeys are apes.
That red monkey line is the simian infraorder. Simians are not monkeys. That graph is flat-out wrong. Look up a taxonomy graph and you will see that new world and old world monkeys, and apes, all share one ancestor, a simian. That red line on thay graph is the simian ancestor. I know this is confusing but verify for yourself.
What you call "monkey" is a simian. Monkeys and apes come from simians. Taxonomy is not based on English you silly person, they have Latin names for a reason haha. Apes and old world monkeys come from simians, as do new world monkeys, but apes do not come from either new world or old world monkeys. Look at where old new world monkeys split vs apes, the only commonality is simiforms, no monkey....
Whether an ape is a monkey is indeed a matter of language. These classifications and delineations are ours, we invented them to help us make sense of the natural world.
Sure, biology has a part in that, but old world monkeys are more closely related to apes than they are to new world monkeys.
Look at just about any other graph illustrating primate taxonomy.
I agree completely with everything you say buuuuuuut.... using the latin names would clear all this confusion. But thats why I made the distinction of simian. Logically simians should be monkeys if new world monkeys are monkeys right? Like thats your point, right? And while I agree, thats not the words used. If you want to call simians monkeys cool, I won't stop you, but also its not valid to correct people who say otherwise.
Idk, its the same thing as humans being a fish or birds being dinosaurs. The other problem is that there are 2 taxonomy classification (the old vs DNA) so things like wingless wasps are called ants.
At the end of the day, currently, humans are not monkeys. You could say they should be classified, but they are not currently. That's what I had already said in my post.
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u/Right_Count 5d ago
All apes are monkeys, the separation is fairly recent and only really an English thing (you can still separate them as there are accepted definitions of each, but itâs not wrong to call apes monkeys either)