• @[email protected]
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    105 months ago

    Can somebody explain for the non-english natives? I didn’t know there’s a difference between apes and monkeys.

    • ShaunaTheDead
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      115 months ago

      The easiest way to tell the difference is that monkeys have tails and apes don’t. Chimps are definitely apes and I’m not sure what OP is getting at.

      • @[email protected]OP
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        75 months ago

        What I’m getting at is taxonomy. A valid taxon has to include all descendents of the crown group. That means that for monkeys to constitute a valid taxon, apes must be included. Same reason why birds are technically dinosaurs.

          • @[email protected]OP
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            55 months ago

            Fair enough. I just belong to the people who require a valid taxon to be monophyletic. (Btw., “clade” already implies monophyleti…city? Monophyleticness?)

            Also, shut up about viruses, they make a mess of everything and are beautifully chaotic and I hate them and I love them. xD

      • BougieBirdie
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        165 months ago

        I am not a biologist, but the way I was taught was that monkeys have tails and apes do not.

        As far as the spelling, “monkeys” is correct.

        You may be thinking that you want the plural of monkey, but because it ends in y the ending should become -ies. For example: berry -> berries

        However, that rule is a little more complicated, and the ending of monkey is -ey. Because there is a vowel before the y the ending you don’t have to change the -y to -ie and instead simply add -s

        English is stupid.

        • Gormadt
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          55 months ago

          English is stupid

          As a native English speaker I have to agree

          Though going through the vocabulary thoroughly can lead to tough and interesting things

          Like nouns as verbs, that shit’s fire

    • Nakedmole
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      35 months ago

      Du kennst diese Gruppen vermutlich als Affen und Menschen-Affen.

    • @[email protected]
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      35 months ago

      so, frequently people will conflate monkeys and apes, and use the terms interchangably (that’s the left end of the graph), people with a bit more knowledge may be aware of the common definition that monkeys have tails while apes do not (that’s the middle part), while those with more knowledge of biological taxonomy argue that, since new world monkeys and old world monkeys share a more distant common ancestor than old world monkeys and apes, if we want to define a term ‘monkey’ that encompasses both new and old world monkeys, it would have to also include all apes (including humans). so, according to the right side of the graph people, chimpanzees are apes are monkeys (though lots of monkeys are not apes, it’s a squares and rectangles kinda thing).