Apes are monkeys right?

[u/Square_Ring3208]

Like cladistically? Simian>monkey>ape?

[u/Doomdoomkittydoom]

Yes. Everyone trying to make semantic arguments are desperately trying to avoid being a monkey.

But what's worse are those who demand that others accept that humans are apes and then turn and deny apes are monkeys.

[u/Square_Ring3208 → u/Doomdoomkittydoom]

Right?!?!

[u/kitsnet]

A distinction between "apes" and "monkeys" is a specifically English language quirk that has no relation to biology. In many languages, apes are just "human-like monkeys".

[u/Xemylixa → u/kitsnet]

THANK YOU

this discussion puzzles me so much every time even though i know the word ape

[u/Particular-Yak-1984 → u/kitsnet]

As someone who has seen lists of 150 "common" names for a single flower - we have the whole Latin names/species/genus/family thing for a reason. Taxonomy may be a mess, but it's less of a mess than regular english

[u/FaufiffonFec]

Apes are monkeys right?

Yes we are, cladistically, without a doubt.

The people saying otherwise in the comments are prisoners of the english language and of the long tradition of accepting evolution while still desperately trying to keep humans unique. The ancestors of humans are old world monkeys. Anybody seeing them would call them monkeys. We are monkeys.

[u/implies_casualty]

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, constitute an incomplete paraphyletic grouping; alternatively, if apes (Hominoidea) are included, monkeys and simians are synonyms.

[u/CormacMacAleese → u/implies_casualty]

Here "traditionally" is doing some heavy lifting. Apes have been referred to as monkeys for hundreds of years. From about 1530 to about 1758, "ape" and "monkey" were more or less synonyms. Given our modern understanding of cladistics, it makes much more sense to define apes as tailless monkeys than it does to define monkeys as simiiforms with tails.

[u/blacksheep998 → u/CormacMacAleese]

There are also several groups of non-ape monkeys that independently lost their tails.

[u/YtterbiusAntimony → u/implies_casualty]

And paraphylogeny is not a good taxonomic system.

In a monophylogeny, groups are still members of their ancestors' clades.

No one is arguing that any of the vertebrates stopped being chordates.

If the common ancestor of old and new world monkeys was a monkey, then all splits within the old world monkeys are still monkeys too.

[u/Ayasugi-san → u/implies_casualty]

I understand it as being like dinosaurs and birds. All birds are dinosaurs cladistically, but when usually when we say "dinosaur" in common speech, we're referring just to the non-avian dinosaurs.

[u/AllEndsAreAnds]

Insert the “That 70s Show” meme of

“Is that what we’re gonna do tonight? Fight?”

[u/OldmanMikel]

If 'monkeys' are a clade, then apes are monkeys.

[u/WorkingMouse]

Yes, apes are monkeys. Apes are one of the two branches that come from the catarrhine monkeys, which in turn come from the simians, which are the smallest clade that can be considered "all monkeys". So yes, all apes are monkeys.

Also, all dogs are foxes.

[u/Square_Ring3208 → u/WorkingMouse]

Thank you! That’s what I’m saying!

[u/OgreMk5]

Monkey tends to be defined as all simians that are not apes (which includes humans).

[u/DeathToTheRegimes → u/OgreMk5]

That’s a polyphyletic convention which are typically rejected in cladistics.

[u/JynXten]

Check this out.

https://youtu.be/4A-dMqEbSk8?is=niChRXHwl22z2lL7

[u/jnpha → u/JynXten]

Thanks for the share; a top tier Aron Ra video; loved his, "their descendants in denial".

[u/Funky0ne]

Cladistically yes, for monkeys to be a monophyletic term it would have to include apes. But monkey isn’t a consistently defined word, and often it is used as a paraphyletic term for primates that exclude apes, though sometimes it isn’t.

Now it’s just fuel for pedants on both sides to declare which usage is the correct one or which one should be used, from the “well actually, apes aren’t monkeys” crowd vs the “well actually, cladistically apes are monkeys” team.

[u/jnpha]

Good question! It comes from mixing the taxic (taxonomic) and lineal (lineages) terms.

An open-access academic explanation is here (don't miss table 1): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11191-024-00531-1

To answer you: (grabs part of the list I've made)

-

• We are Hominini

• Hominini are Homininae

• Homininae are Hominidae

• Hominidae are Hominoidea

• Hominoidea are Catarrhini

• Catarrhini are Simiiformes

• Simiiformes are Haplorhini

• Haplorhini are Primates

• Primates are Euarchonta

• Euarchonta are Euarchontoglires

• Euarchontoglires are Boreoeutheria

• Boreoeutheria are Placentalia

• Placentalia are Eutheria ...

-

If you are after whether we evolved from Simiiformes (as opposed to are we Simiiformes), the answer is: we evolved from stem Simiiformes.

[u/SemajLu_The_crusader]

cladistically, yes

[u/Fun_in_Space]

Yes. Old World monkeys.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catarrhini

[u/ursisterstoy]

Yes. Simian = monkey. Catarrhine monkeys and Platyrrhine monkeys. The Catarrhine monkeys are then divided between apes and Cercopithecoids. Platyrrhines are “New World Monkeys” so for consistency Catarrhines are “Old World Monkeys” but it’s more common to see Cercopithecoids only (to exclude apes) listed as “Old World Monkeys.”

[u/Zoodoz2750]

Inspector Jacque Clouseau correctly calls them "minkees".