Simian
| Simians Temporal range: Middle Eocene-Holocene, 40–0 Ma |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Lar gibbon in the Philadelphia Zoo | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Primates |
| Suborder: | Haplorhini |
| Infraorder: |
Simiiformes Haeckel, 1866 |
The simians (infraorder Simiiformes, Anthropoidea) are the monkeys, cladistically including the apes: the New World monkeys or platyrrhines, and the catarrhine clade consisting of the Old World monkeys and apes.
The simian line and the tarsier line diverged about 60 million years ago (during the Cenozoic era). Forty million years ago, simians from Africa colonized South America, giving rise to the New World monkeys. The remaining simians (catarrhines) split 25 million years ago into apes and Old World monkeys.
In earlier classification, New World monkeys, Old World monkeys, apes, and humans—collectively known as simians or anthropoids—were grouped under Anthropoidea (/ˌænθɹoˈpɔɪdiə/, Gr. άνθρωπος, anthropos, human, also called anthropoid apes), while the strepsirrhines and tarsiers were grouped under the suborder "Prosimii". Under modern classification, the tarsiers and simians are grouped under the suborder Haplorhini while the strepsirrhines are placed in suborder Strepsirrhini. Despite this preferred taxonomic division, prosimian is still regularly found in textbooks and the academic literature because of familiarity, a condition likened to the use of the metric system in the sciences and the use of customary units elsewhere in the United States. In anthropoidea, evidences indicate that the Old and the New World primates went through parallel evolution.
Primatology, paleoanthropology, and other related fields are split on their usage of the synonymous infraorder names, Simiiformes and Anthropoidea. According to Robert Hoffstetter (and supported by Colin Groves), the term Simiiformes has priority over Anthropoidea because of the taxonomic term Simii by van der Hoeven, from which it is constructed, dates to 1833. In contrast, Anthropoidea by Mivart dates to 1864, while Simiiformes by Haeckel dates to 1866, leading to counterclaims of priority. Hoffstetter also argued that Simiiformes is also constructed like a proper infraorder name (ending in -iformes), whereas Anthropoidea ends in -oidea, which is reserved for superfamilies. He also noted that Anthropoidea is too easily confused with "anthropoïdes", which translates to "apes" from several languages.
...
Wikipedia