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 A105 Human Origins and Prehistory
A105 Primate Classification Exercise

In this activity you were asked to place a selection of animals, mostly primates, into the best groups you could come up with.  There were a variety of responses.  I've looked at them in more detail, and overall you did a good job -- it's not easy being an amateur biologist confronted with 15 unfamiliar species!  Remember, it took scientists decades to come up with the classification we now accept.  The greatest difficulties came in a few areas: placing the gibbon and dividing up the various monkeys.

The gibbon is one of the apes, which you can tell by its slightly-larger-than-monkey-sized body and its lack of a tail.  Some groups placed gibbons with other apes, some with monkeys, and some placed the gibbon alone.  This last option is not unreasonable, as gibbons are alone among apes (being smaller and having a different lifestyle) but it's important to be able to place gibbons among their closest relatives as well as recognizing what makes them unique.

Monkeys proved to be more of a problem.  Specifically, there seems to be quite a bit of confusion over New World versus Old World monkeys.  The tamarin, muriqui, and guenon in particular were all over the place.  The best "trick" to keep in mind if you want to differentiate Old and New World monkeys is to look at their teeth: Old World Monkeys have dental formulas like apes (2.1.2.3) while New World monkeys have an extra premolar (2.1.3.3).  Once that is sorted out, it's relatively easy to make subgroups among New and Old World monkeys.

So, without further ado, here are the classifications of the primates from our activity:

Prosimians: Tarsier, Ring-tailed Lemur, Slow Loris
New World Monkeys: Muriqui, White-throated Capuchin, Golden Lion Tamarin
Old World Monkeys: Black and white Colobus, Hamadryas Baboon, Mustached Guenon, Hanuman Langur.
Apes: White-handed gibbon, Chimpanzee, Mountain Gorilla, Orangutan, technically, Human too.
Outgroup: Cat

Classification of Modern Primates

                            Order  Primates

    Suborder Prosimii                           
Superfamilies- Lorisoidea, Lemuroidea, Tarsiioidea                       
Lorisoidea: Loris, galago
Lemuroidea: Lemur, indri,
    sifaka
Tarsiioidea: Tarsier

    Suborder Anthropoidea
Infaorder Platyrrhini (New World Primates)
Families Callitrichidae, Cebidae (New World Monkey Families)
Callitrichidae: Tamarins, marmosets
Cebidae: Capuchins, spider monkeys, squirrel monkeys

    Suborder Anthropoidea
Infraorder Catarrhini (Old World Primates)
Superfamily Cercopithecoidea (Old World Monkeys)
Leaf monkeys: Colobus
Other monkeys: Baboon, vervet, macaque, guenon

    Suborder Anthropoidea
Infraorder Catarrhini (Old World Primates)
Superfamily Hominoidea (Apes and Humans)
Families Hylobatidae, Pongidae, Hominidae
Hylobatidae: Gibbons, siamangs
Pongidae: Chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, orangutan
Hominidae: Humans

Remember, each taxon contains both living and extinct lineage members.