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You are here: Home / Animals / What is the Difference between Monkeys, Apes and Gorillas and are Primates different from Simians?

What is the Difference between Monkeys, Apes and Gorillas and are Primates different from Simians?

March 31, 2020 by Karen Hill

You’re not alone, my anthropoid friend. Let’s lay out the differences between the different Primates with a minimum of screeching, howling, and chest-beating.

Primates are human beings and all of the other animals that resemble us most closely. Primates have two main groups: anthropoids, or simians, and prosimians.

Anthropoids include:

Monkeys. New World monkeys live in South and Central America and include marmosets, tamarins, capuchins, howlers, spider monkeys, squirrel monkeys, woolly monkeys, and even woolly spider monkeys. Old World monkeys live in Asia and Africa and include baboons, colobus monkeys, guenons, langurs, and macaques.

Apes. There are four major ape groupings, chimpanzees, gibbons, gorillas, and orangutans. Apes have no tails and are smarter than monkeys. Apes walk in an upright position instead of on four feet like monkeys. Apes actually climb trees; monkeys take a leap into them.
Humans. It’s pretty much just custom, religious dogma, and species egotism that keep people from proudly classifying themselves as apes. Most scientists don’t make that distinction.

By the way, if you exclude the humans from the above group, the apes and monkeys you have left are known as simians.

Prosimians include a number of lesser-known animals like aye-ayes, galagos, lemurs, lorises, pottos, and tarsiers. Prosimii means “premonkey”, in other words, they closely resemble the primitive primates that lived tens of millions of years ago before monkeys, apes, and humans began to evolve.

Physically, prosimians have long, constantly wet noses like foxes instead of the flatter, drier noses of the anthropoids. Smell is more crucial to the prosimians, while anthropoids depend more on vision. Finally, the prosimians are not as strong or smart as the anthropoids.

Not counting the lemurs, which are lucky enough to be isolated on the island of Madagascar, most of the prosimians have to directly compete for food with better-equipped monkeys and apes. In order to survive, prosimians became nocturnal hunters that scrounge for food while their larger, smarter prosimian primates? cousins sleep.

Related Facts

  • If Humans Evolved from Monkeys and Apes, why do Apes and Monkeys still exist today?
  • Do other Primates besides Humans, like Monkeys and Apes, ever cannibalize each other?
  • What other Apes and Monkeys been taught Sign Language besides Gorillas like Koko?
  • Can Gorillas and Monkeys Swim or will they Drown in Water?
  • Are Monkeys and Apes as evil as some Humans and do they Murder and Commit Crimes against their own Species?
  • Do apes and monkeys see the same colors as humans?
  • Which Apes or Monkeys do not Live in Forests or Jungles and live on the Ground?
  • What were the names of the Gorillas from the Tom and Jerry cartoon and The Magilla Gorilla Show?
  • Which Primates besides Humans are Major Meat Eaters and what kind of Meat do they Eat?
  • Why do Male Chimpanzees have Bigger Testicles compared to Humans and Gorillas also have Tiny Ones?
  • Which other Primates besides Humans have face to face sex?
  • Why are Mountain Gorillas that Dian Fossey studied not kept in Zoos in the United States?

Filed Under: Animals

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

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