The
parvorder Catarrhini (known commonly as catarrhine monkeys, Old World anthropoids, or Old World monkeys) consists of the
Cercopithecoidea and
apes (Hominoidea). In 1812,
Geoffroy grouped those two groups together and established the name Catarrhini, "Old World monkeys", ("''singes de l'Ancien Monde''" in
French).
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
Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...
placed this group in 1758 together with what we now recognise as the
tarsiers and the New World monkeys, in a single genus "''
Simia''" (sans ''
Homo
''Homo'' () is a genus of great ape (family Hominidae) that emerged from the genus ''Australopithecus'' and encompasses only a single extant species, ''Homo sapiens'' (modern humans), along with a number of extinct species (collectively called ...
''). The Catarrhini are all native to
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
and
Asia
Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...
. 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 used to describe the majority of lands of Earth's Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, and sometimes Oceania."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: ...
platyrrhines and
Old World 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 classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
''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 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 sexes of the same species exhibit different Morphology (biology), morphological characteristics, including characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most dioecy, di ...
and do not form a pair bond
In biology, a pair bond is the strong affinity that develops in some species between a mating pair, often leading to the production and rearing of young and potentially a lifelong bond. Pair-bonding is a term coined in the 1940s that is frequently ...
. Most, but not all, species live in social groups. Like the platyrrhines, the catarrhines are generally diurnal,human
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus ''Homo''. They are Hominidae, great apes characterized by their Prehistory of nakedness and clothing ...
s, and related extinct genera, such as the prehuman australopithecines 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 separating from the great apes (including humans) about 15-19 Mya.monkeys
Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes. Thus monkeys, in that sense, co ...
is complicated by the traditional paraphyly
Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...
of monkeys
Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes. Thus monkeys, in that sense, co ...
: 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 is an order (biology), order of mammals, which is further divided into the Strepsirrhini, strepsirrhines, which include lemurs, galagos, and Lorisidae, lorisids; and the Haplorhini, haplorhines, which include Tarsiiformes, tarsiers a ...
s
Cladogram
Below is a cladogram
A cladogram (from Greek language, Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an Phylogenetic tree, evolutionary tree because it does not s ...
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. The Saadanioidea may be sister to the Propliopithecoidea s.s., and Micropithecus may be sister to the Taqah Propliopithecids.
References
Further reading
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*
External links
*
{{Authority control
Extant Eocene first appearances
Taxa named by Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire
Taxa described in 1812