In taxonomy (the system of biological classification), monkeys (Simiiformes) are an infraorder of the order of primates (Primates). Apes (Hominoidea) in turn are a superfamily within the Simiiformes. It’s an “every thumb is a finger, but not every finger is a thumb” situation.
Comment on Subsets are a thing in biology as well.
kbal@fedia.io 4 months ago
Can someone explain for the non-biologists? I never heard of chimps being classified as monkeys.
dogsoahC@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Little_mouse@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
Linnaean taxonomy classifies apes and monkeys as two closely related groups. This is the classification system most people are taught in grade school.
Cladistics is a style of classification that seeks to organize species and groups of species from when they branched off of other groups of species. In this style, everything is defined by novel features, but they are still members of the more ancient clade. Birds for instance, would be a novel clade emerging from Dinosaurs, and thus all birds are also dinosaurs, but not all dinosaurs are birds.
Because there are two groups of monkeys with unique characteristics (new world and old world), and apes have unique adaptations not found in either group, we have no way of cladistically defining a monkey in a way that meaningfully does not also include apes.
As a side note, this is where the phrase “there is no such thing as a fish” comes from. ‘Fish’ in the Linnaean sense are a huge and diverse category. Two random members of the fish class would likely be far, far more distantly related than a random mammal and a random reptile.
kbal@fedia.io 4 months ago
Ah, so chimps are monkeys in the same way that whales are fish.
mrsemi@lemmy.world 4 months ago
dogsoahC@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Technically more like an archaeon that learned a few tricks.
juliebean@lemm.ee 4 months ago
more like chimps are monkeys in the same way that whales are mammals
Semjaza@lemmynsfw.com 4 months ago
I get you’re being facietious, but it’s more like chimps are monkeys in about the same way a hammerhead shark and a lungfish are different.
emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
Apes are Old World monkeys.