The parvorder Catarrhini , catarrhine monkeys, Old World anthropoids, or Old World monkeys, consisting of the Cercopithecoidea and

apes Apes (collectively Hominoidea ) are a clade of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (though they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and as well as Europe in prehistory), which together with its sister g ...

(Hominoidea). In 1812, Geoffroy grouped those two groups together and established the name Catarrhini, "Old World monkeys", ("''singes de l'Ancien Monde''" in

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

). Its sister in the infraorder Simiiformes is the parvorder Platyrrhini (New World monkeys). There has been some resistance to directly designate apes (and thus humans) as monkeys despite the scientific evidence, so "Old World monkey" may be taken to mean the Cercopithecoidea or the Catarrhini. That apes are monkeys was already realized by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in the 18th century. Linnaeus placed this group in 1758 together with what we now recognise as the tarsiers and the New World monkeys, in a single genus " S''imia''" (sans ''

Homo ''Homo'' () is the genus that emerged in the (otherwise extinct) genus '' Australopithecus'' that encompasses the extant species ''Homo sapiens'' ( modern humans), plus several extinct species classified as either ancestral to or closely rela ...

''). The Catarrhini are all native to

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

and

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

. Members of this parvorder are called catarrhines. The Catarrhini are the sister group to the New World monkeys, the Platyrrhini. Some six million years before the ape - Cercopithecoidea bifurcation, the Platyrrhini emerged within "monkeys" by migration to South America from Afro-Arabia (the Old World), likely by ocean.

Description

The technical distinction between the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...

platyrrhines and

Old World The "Old World" is a term for Afro-Eurasia that originated in Europe , after Europeans became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia, which were previously thought of by thei ...

catarrhines is the shape of their noses. The platyrrhines (from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

''platy-'', "flat", and ''rhin-'', "nose") have nostrils which face sideways. The catarrhines (from Ancient Greek ''katà-'', "down", and ''rhin-'', "nose") have nostrils that face downwards. Catarrhines also never have

prehensile Prehensility is the quality of an appendage or organ that has adapted for grasping or holding. The word is derived from the Latin term ''prehendere'', meaning "to grasp". The ability to grasp is likely derived from a number of different orig ...

tails, and have flat fingernails and toenails, a tubular ectotympanic (ear bone), and eight, not 12, premolars, giving them a dental formula of , indicating 2 incisors, 1 canine, 2 premolars, and 3 molars on each side of the upper and lower jaws. Most catarrhine species show considerable

sexual dimorphism Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the sexes of the same animal and/or plant species exhibit different morphological characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most an ...

and do not form a pair bond. Most, but not all, species live in social groups. Like the platyrrhines, the catarrhines are generally diurnal, and have grasping hands and (with the exception of bipedal humans) grasping feet. The apes – in both traditional and phylogenic nomenclature – are exclusively catarrhine species. In traditional usage, ape describes any tailless, larger, and more typically ground-dwelling species of catarrhine. "Ape" may be found as part of the common name of such species, such as the

Barbary ape The Barbary macaque (''Macaca sylvanus''), also known as Barbary ape, is a macaque species native to the Atlas Mountains of Algeria, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco, along with a small introduced population in Gibraltar. It is the type species of the ...

. In phylogenic usage, the term ape applies only to the

superfamily SUPERFAMILY is a database and search platform of structural and functional annotation for all proteins and genomes. It classifies amino acid sequences into known structural domains, especially into SCOP superfamilies. Domains are functional, str ...

Hominoidea. This grouping comprises the two families

Hylobatidae Gibbons () are apes in the family Hylobatidae (). The family historically contained one genus, but now is split into four extant genera and 20 species. Gibbons live in subtropical and tropical rainforest from eastern Bangladesh to Northeast Indi ...

, the lesser apes or gibbons, and

Hominidae The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the ...

, the great apes, including

orangutan Orangutans are great apes native to the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia. They are now found only in parts of Borneo and Sumatra, but during the Pleistocene they ranged throughout Southeast Asia and South China. Classified in the genu ...

gorilla Gorillas are herbivorous, predominantly ground-dwelling great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four ...

chimpanzee The chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''), also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. When its close relative t ...

bonobo The bonobo (; ''Pan paniscus''), also historically called the pygmy chimpanzee and less often the dwarf chimpanzee or gracile chimpanzee, is an endangered great ape and one of the two species making up the genus '' Pan,'' the other being the comm ...

human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, cultu ...

s, and related extinct genera, such as the prehuman

australopithecines Australopithecina or Hominina is a subtribe in the tribe Hominini. The members of the subtribe are generally ''Australopithecus'' ( cladistically including the genera ''Homo'', '' Paranthropus'', and ''Kenyanthropus''), and it typically include ...

and the giant orangutan relative '' Gigantopithecus''.

Classification and evolution

According to Schrago & Russo, New World monkeys split from their Old World kin about 35 million years ago (Mya). They use the major catarrhine division between cercopithecoids and hominoids of about 25 Mya (which they argue is strongly supported by the fossil evidence), as a calibration point, and from this also calculate the

gibbons Gibbons may refer to: * The plural of gibbon, an ape in the family Hylobatidae * Gibbons (surname) * Gibbons, Alberta * Gibbons (automobile), a British light car of the 1920s * Gibbons P.C., a leading American law firm headquartered in New Jerse ...

separating from the great apes (including humans) about 15-19 Mya. According to Begun and Harrison, the Catarrhini split from their New World monkey kin about 44 - 40 Mya, with the first catarrhines appearing in Africa and Arabia, and not appearing in Eurasia (outside Arabia) until 18-17 Mya. Catarrhini lost the enzyme

Alpha-galactosidase α-Galactosidase ( EC 3.2.1.22, α-GAL, α-GAL A; systematic name α-D-galactoside galactohydrolase) is a glycoside hydrolase enzyme that catalyses the following reaction: : Hydrolysis of terminal, non-reducing α-D-galactose residues in α-D ...

, present in all other mammal lineages, sometime after the split from platyrrhini. It is hypothesized that an ancient pathogen containing Alpha-galactosidase may be responsible, as only individuals with mutations that "turned off" the gene for Alpha-galactosidase would have produced antibodies against the pathogen and survived. The distinction between apes and

monkeys Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as the simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes, which constitutes an incom ...

is complicated by the traditional

paraphyly In taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In ...

: apes emerged as a sister group of Old World monkeys in the catarrhines, which are a sister group of New World monkeys. Therefore, cladistically, apes, catarrhines and related contemporary extinct groups such as Parapithecidae are monkeys as well, for any consistent definition of "monkey". "Old World Monkey" may also legitimately be taken to be meant to include all the catarrhines, including apes and extinct species such as '' Aegyptopithecus'', in which case the apes, Cercopithecoidea and ''Aegyptopithecus'' emerged within the Old World Monkeys. Although the colloquial usage of terms like ''ape'' and ''monkey'' in English reflects a misconception about their true biological relationship, this is not the case in some other languages; for example, in Russian, the same term is used to describe all simians, both with and without tails, including apes. * Order

Primate Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians ( monkeys and apes, the latter includin ...

s ** Suborder

Strepsirrhini Strepsirrhini or Strepsirhini (; ) is a suborder of primates that includes the lemuriform primates, which consist of the lemurs of Madagascar, galagos ("bushbabies") and pottos from Africa, and the lorises from India and southeast Asia. Co ...

: lemurs, lorises, etc. ** Suborder

Haplorhini Haplorhini (), the haplorhines ( Greek for "simple-nosed") or the "dry-nosed" primates, is a suborder of primates containing the tarsiers and the simians (Simiiformes or anthropoids), as sister of the Strepsirrhini ("moist-nosed"). The name is so ...

: tarsiers + monkeys, including apes *** Infraorder

Tarsiiformes Tarsiiformes are a group of primates that once ranged across Europe, northern Africa, Asia, and North America, but whose extant species are all found in the islands of Southeast Asia. Tarsiers (family Tarsiidae) are the only living members ...

**** Family

Tarsiidae Tarsiers ( ) are haplorhine primates of the family Tarsiidae, which is itself the lone extant family within the infraorder Tarsiiformes. Although the group was once more widespread, all of its species living today are found in Maritime Southeas ...

: tarsiers *** Infraorder Simiiformes : simians (monkeys, including apes), or higher primates ****Parvorder Catarrhini ***** Superfamily † Propliopithecoidea ****** Family † Propliopithecidae (includes '' Aegyptopithecus'') ***** Superfamily † Pliopithecoidea ****** Family † Dionysopithecidae ****** Family † Pliopithecidae ***** Superfamily † Dendropithecoidea ****** Family † Dendropithecidae ***** Superfamily † Saadanioidea ****** Family † Saadaniidae ***** Superfamily † Parapithecoidea ****** Family † Parapithecidae ***** Superfamily Cercopithecoidea ****** Family

Cercopithecidae Old World monkey is the common English name for a family of primates known taxonomically as the Cercopithecidae (). Twenty-four genera and 138 species are recognized, making it the largest primate family. Old World monkey genera include baboons ...

***** Superfamily Hominoidea : apes ****** Family

: gibbons ****** Family

: great apes (including humans) **** Parvorder Platyrrhini: New World monkeys

Cladogram

Below is a

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an evolutionary tree because it does not show how ancestors are related to ...

with extinct species in which the crown Catharrhini, which emerged in the Propliopithecoidea. Also, Saadanioidea is sister of the Cercopithecoidea rather than of the Crown Catarrhini here. It is indicated how many million years ago (Mya) the clades diverged into newer clades. The Platyrrhini may have emerged in e.g. the Oligopithecidae.

References

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q206930 Monkeys Extant Eocene first appearances Taxa named by Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire Taxa described in 1812