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Catarrhini

Humans, great apes, gibbons, Old World monkeys

Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
 Adult male olive baboon (Papio anubis) eating meatLowland gorilla
taxon links [up-->]Hylobatidae [up-->]Cercopithecidae [up-->]Hominidae [down<--]Primates Interpreting the tree
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This tree diagram shows the relationships between several groups of organisms.

The root of the current tree connects the organisms featured in this tree to their containing group and the rest of the Tree of Life. The basal branching point in the tree represents the ancestor of the other groups in the tree. This ancestor diversified over time into several descendent subgroups, which are represented as internal nodes and terminal taxa to the right.

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You can click on the root to travel down the Tree of Life all the way to the root of all Life, and you can click on the names of descendent subgroups to travel up the Tree of Life all the way to individual species.

For more information on ToL tree formatting, please see Interpreting the Tree or Classification. To learn more about phylogenetic trees, please visit our Phylogenetic Biology pages.

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Phylogeny from Purvis (1995).
Containing group: Primates

Other Names for Catarrhini

References

Andrews, P. 1996. Palaeoecology and hominoid palaeoenvironments. Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 71:257-300.

Arnason, U., A. Gullberg, A. Janke, and X. F. Xu. 1996. Pattern and timing of evolutionary divergences among hominoids based on analyses of complete mtDNAs. Journal of Molecular Evolution 43:650-661.

Benefit, B. R. 1999. Victoriapithecus: The key to old world monkey and catarrhine origins. Evolutionary Anthropology 7:155-174.

Benefit, B. R. and M. L. McCrossin. 1997. Earliest known Old World monkey skull. Nature 388:368-371.

Caccone, A. and J. R. Powell. 1989. DNA divergence among hominoids. Evolution 43:925-942.

Collard, M. and B. Wood. 2000. How reliable are human phylogenetic hypotheses? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 97:5003-5006.

Cowlishaw, G. and J. E. Hacker. 1997. Distribution, diversity, and latitude in African primates. American Naturalist 150:505-512.

Gibbs, S., M. Collard, and B. Wood. 2000. Soft-tissue characters in higher primate phylogenetics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 97:11130-11132.

Goodman, M., D. A. Tagle, D. H. A. Fitch, W. Bailey, J. Czelusniak, B. F. Koop, P. Benson, and J. L. Slightom. 1990. Primate evolution at the DNA level and a classification of hominoids. Journal of Molecular Evolution 30:260-266.

Harrison, T. 1987. The phylogenetic relationships of the early catarrhine primates: A review of the current evidence. Journal of Human Evolution 16:41-80.

Harrison, T, and Y. M. Gu. 1999. Taxonomy and phylogenetic relationships of early Miocene catarrhines from Sihong, China. Journal of Human Evolution 37:225-277.

Purvis, A. 1995. A composite estimate of primate phylogeny. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B 348:405-421.

Rae, T. C. 1999. Mosaic evolution in the origin of the hominoidea. Folia Primatologica 70:125-135.

Raaum, R. L., K. N. Sterner, C. M. Noviello, C. Stewart, and T. R. Disotell. 2005. Catarrhine primate divergence dates estimated from complete mitochondrial genomes: concordance with fossil and nuclear DNA evidence. J. Hum. Evol. 48: 237–257.

Ruvolo, M. 1997. Genetic diversity in hominoid primates. Annual Review of Anthropology 26:515-540.

Steiper, M. E., N. M. Young, and T. Y. Sukarna. 2004. Genomic data support the hominoid slowdown and an Early Oligocene estimate for the hominoid-cercopithecoid divergence. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 101(49):17021-17026.

Stewart, C. B. and T. R. Disotell. 1998. Primate evolution - in and out of Africa. Current Biology 8:R582-R588.

Young, N. M. and L. MacLatchy. 2004. The phylogenetic position of Morotopithecus. Journal of Human Evolution 46(2):163-184.

Information on the Internet

African Primates at Home

Title Illustrations
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Scientific Name Presbytis (Semnopithecus) entellus
Location Khana (India)
Comments Hanuman langur
Creator Robert Thomas and Margaret Orr
Specimen Condition Live Specimen
Source Collection CalPhotos
Copyright © 2001 California Academy of Sciences
Adult male olive baboon (Papio anubis) eating meat
Scientific Name Papio anubis
Location Maasai Mara National Reserve, Kenya
Comments Baboons occasionally kill and eat mammalian prey. In this case the source of the meat was unknown.
Specimen Condition Live Specimen
Identified By David Bygott
Behavior Predation or scavenging
Sex Male
Life Cycle Stage Adult
View Fronto-lateral
Copyright © 2005
Lowland gorilla
Scientific Name Gorilla gorilla gorilla
Location San Francisco Zoo, San Francisco, California (US)
Comments Lowland gorilla
Creator Photograph by Gerald and Buff Corsi
Specimen Condition Live Specimen
Source Collection CalPhotos
Copyright © 2001 California Academy of Sciences
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Citing this page:

Tree of Life Web Project. 1999. Catarrhini. Humans, great apes, gibbons, Old World monkeys. Version 01 January 1999 (temporary). http://tolweb.org/Catarrhini/16293/1999.01.01 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/

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This page is a Tree of Life Branch Page.

Each ToL branch page provides a synopsis of the characteristics of a group of organisms representing a branch of the Tree of Life. The major distinction between a branch and a leaf of the Tree of Life is that each branch can be further subdivided into descendent branches, that is, subgroups representing distinct genetic lineages.

For a more detailed explanation of the different ToL page types, have a look at the Structure of the Tree of Life page.

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