New scientist Gregg Braden

[robocop (actually)]

Chimpanzees are apes, not monkeys.

All Homo, including Homo sapiens humans, belonged to the “great apes”, Hominidae, in which the extant species gorillas, chimpanzees also belonged to. (The “lesser apes” are gibbons.)

The split between monkeys (or more precisely Old World monkeys) and apes (which would include the great apes, hence humans too) occurred 25 million years ago, not 300,000 years ago.

Second, the Homo heidelbergensis didn’t split from the other great apes.

Homo heidelbergensiswere themselves directly descendants of the older Homo ergaster species.

The descendants of Homo heidelbergensis include the Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens.

There are some problems with the classification of Homo ergaster, as to whether it is distinct to the Homo erectus, or they are the same species. But that’s really above my head, so until the palaeontologists can agree and settle with the ergaster and erectus issues, I cannot know if one is true or the other.

But older than both erectus and ergaster, is the Homo habilis, perhaps the oldest of the genus Homo.

If I remember correctly the split between Pan and Homo occurred 6 or 7 million years ago.

Give it up! I have already conceded the issue to like 3 people.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Chimpanzees are apes, not monkeys.

All Homo, including Homo sapiens humans, belonged to the “great apes”, Hominidae, in which the extant species gorillas, chimpanzees also belonged to. (The “lesser apes” are gibbons.)

The split between monkeys (or more precisely Old World monkeys) and apes (which would include the great apes, hence humans too) occurred 25 million years ago, not 300,000 years ago.

Second, the Homo heidelbergensis didn’t split from the other great apes.

Homo heidelbergensiswere themselves directly descendants of the older Homo ergaster species.

The descendants of Homo heidelbergensis include the Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens.

There are some problems with the classification of Homo ergaster, as to whether it is distinct to the Homo erectus, or they are the same species. But that’s really above my head, so until the palaeontologists can agree and settle with the ergaster and erectus issues, I cannot know if one is true or the other.

But older than both erectus and ergaster, is the Homo habilis, perhaps the oldest of the genus Homo.

If I remember correctly the split between Pan and Homo occurred 6 or 7 million years ago.

Warning! Pedantic mode on.

Monkeys are not a monophyletic group. To make them one would make chimps monkeys too. As well as man.

 

[Audie]

Warning! Pedantic mode on.

Monkeys are not a monophyletic group. To make them one would make chimps monkeys too. As well as man.

And sharks are not fish

 

[Subduction Zone]

And sharks are not fish

It depends upon one's definition. But again a monophyletic group could include man as "fish" and exclude sharks.

Pedantic mode off.

 

[Audie]

It depends upon one's definition. But again a monophyletic group could include man as "fish" and exclude sharks.

Pedantic mode off.

And the whales! It is, you know, a fishery.

Sharks and whales and cyclostomes and shellfish
aint fish.

And it aint pedantulation to say so isn't.

 

[gnostic]

Monkeys are not a monophyletic group. To make them one would make chimps monkeys too. As well as man.

It can't be helped, because they all fall under a lot larger umbrella of "Primates", whether they be "apes" or "monkeys".

How far back in time the split occurred, only demonstrated their common ancestry. Go even further, you will find them all under the category of mammals (Mammalia).

But you are right, it isn't monophyletic. I think that's why biologists today, have to include clades in the the biological taxonomy.

Anyway, chimps are not monkeys. That was my point to robocop.

 

[John53]

And the whales! It is, you know, a fishery.

Whales must be fish, the bible says they are! And bats are birds.

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

It can't be helped, because they all fall under a lot larger umbrella of "Primates", whether they be "apes" or "monkeys".

How far back in time the split occurred, only demonstrated their common ancestry. Go even further, you will find them all under the category of mammals (Mammalia).

But you are right, it isn't monophyletic. I think that's why biologists today, have to include clades in the the biological taxonomy.

Anyway, chimps are not monkeys. That was my point to robocop.

Most of the confusion occurs when we try to use paraphyletic colloquial terms like monkey, ape, and fish to describe monophyletic groups like Catarrhini, Hominidae, and Vertebrata respectively. The colloquial terms are "wrong" in a biological sense which makes it difficult to incorporate the terms into biology.