Ooh, Chimpanzee That! Monkey News!
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. Identity crisis.
Pandaman said:
Yes. But the new world monkeys diverged from the rest first. Thus, whatever diverged from the NW monkeys were also monkeys, which eventually diverged into OW monkeys and apes.
And of course monkeys existed. Two different clades cannot be part of the same group if their ancestor wasn't the founding member of that group. Otherwise, that's paraphyletics.
Pandaman said:
You just basically said "any anthropoid but apes" :I Which makes no sense in cladistic. That would be like defining TVs by "not a computer".
Byakuya769
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Why we still got monkeys?
nope, the last common ancestor of new world members postdates that split too.Raist said:
'monkey' isn't a group. its a name.
a name two unrelated families of primates share.
and sure you can, consider the theory that hippos and ceteacans split from artiodactyls together and diverged from a common semi aquatic ancestor. in that case they would share a clade, but the common ancestor was neither a hippo nor a cetacean.
http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/14/5/537
catchabad0ne
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Syth_Blade22 said:
Because Americans don't know who Ricky Gervais is.....? Right.
More like spot one of the billions of people on earth who doesn't listen to Ricky's podcast.
Pandaman said:
Which is exactly why the term shouldn't exist at all in any scientific context (yet it sure does). You can't call the same way two independent clades if their common ancestor wasn't part of that group as well. That makes absolutely no sense. Because by that logic, the common ancestor of all new world monkeys wouldn't be a monkey.
And Aphidium, which was the common ancestor of all simians, completely fits the very definition of a monkey.
People refuse to consider apes as monkeys for the very same reason that at some point they wouldn't consider humans as apes. Yet eventually that was accepted. Guess it'll take some more time for monkeys.
Also birds are dinosaurs and snakes are lizards. There.
And the common ancestor of humans and chimps was neither a human nor a chimp. So?
It was an ape, tho.
edit: WTF AT THAT FUUUUUUU PIC
except it doesn't.Raist said:
its used in the same convention as crabs or bugs when specific differentiation would be needlessly obtuse. the only scientific credence 'monkey' gets is as a name for two distinct groups and thats only because its a scientific principle to honour the earliest known commonly accepted name.
sure you can, its a name, not a classification. you're arguing that two people shouldn't be called smith unless they share a parent.
but hey, its not a clade, its a name. this problem only exists because you insist it does. if you didn't convolute the names with the groups cladistic classification your point would disappear.
:lol
Pandaman said:
I certainly see the term "monkey" used a lot in primatology, phylogeny etc.
So I guess that you wouldn't call Aphidium a monkey then? What would it be for you?
I mean, I understand your point that it is only a colloquial term, I'm just saying that it shouldn't be used at all in a scientific context. If you want to give a correct definition describing a monkey, then apes would fall in that category as well.
Well that's true. I mean not so long ago Apes were "all hominoidae but humans"
I'm unfamiliar with that specimen, but 'vaguely lemurish primate with a flat face and extra teeth' works for me.Raist said:
wikipedia suggests Parapithecidae.
but there is no correct definition.
its a name, it has no deeper scientific meaning than that. it is not an actual scientific grouping, its just a popular name used largely because people identify with terms like 'new world monkey' and can associate those three words with tailed primates living in the americas.
There's a slight difference, apes actually exist. a supergrouping of both monkey families never existed. hence why the term was done away with as an official classification. The name may have stuck, but it has no meaning.
Thunder Monkey
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I'm a rainforest monkey.
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