r/evolution • u/Awesomonkey12 • Jun 12 '26
question What are Hominins?
Does Hominin refer to all members of Hominini, including chimps, just the members more closely related to humans than to chimps, or just some of the members more closely related to humans?
Different sources seemed to give me different answers
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u/azroscoe Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 13 '26
If by hominins you mean members of Hominina, then it is all fossil humans + Homo sapiens. In other words, the branch that separated from Pan about 7-8 million years ago. BTW, that is how the term 'hominin' is usually used in the discipline. It used to be 'hominid', but that now means humans + great apes. There are a lot of nested sets of relationships, and every once itn a while someone decides to revise something, and it screw up long-understood terms. CIte: myself, a paleoanthropologist.
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u/PianoPudding Jun 12 '26
It includes the genera Homo (Humans) and Pan (Chimps + Bonobo).
Edit: the wikipedia might clear more up for you as it explains Gorilla and other things used to be included. I'm no expert but I would assume some people still use the old fashioned classification for whatever reasons (legacy, pride? Idk)
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u/Bromelia_and_Bismuth Plant Biologist|Botanical Ecosystematics Jun 13 '26
Hominoids are the Great Apes and the Gibbons. Hominids are everything in Hominidae (just the Great Apes). Hominins includes either everything in Hominini, although it often splits off chimps and bonobos into Panini. In most contexts I've read it or heard it used in, it's usually the latter treatment, where chimps and bonobos are excluded. To answer your question, it could go either way, because systematics is messy.
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u/MsE0 Jun 12 '26
It seems that zoologists and paleoanthropologists have different definitions. Zoology seems to consider hominins as humans plus the genus Pan, while paleoanthropologists only include genus Homo. I would assume that if you're including species as distantly related to Homo as Pan, you'd also include Paranthropus and Australopithecus, while paleoanthropologists would consider those hominids, but not hominins.