Everything about Pongidae totally explained
The
great apes are the members of the
biological family Hominidae which includes
humans,
chimpanzees,
gorillas, and
orangutans.
Characteristics
The great apes are large, tailless primates, with the smallest living species being the
bonobo at 30–40 kilograms in weight, and the largest being the gorillas, with males weighing 140–180 kilograms. In all great apes, the males are, on average, larger and stronger than the females, although the degree of
sexual dimorphism varies greatly among species. Although most living species are predominantly
quadrupedal, they're all able to use their hands for gathering food or nesting materials, and, in some cases, for tool use.
Most species are
omnivorous, but fruit is the preferred food among all but humans. Chimpanzees and orangutans primarily eat fruit. When gorillas run short of fruit at certain times of the year or in certain regions, they resort to eating shoots and leaves, often of bamboo, a type of grass. Gorillas have extreme adaptations for chewing and digesting such low-quality forage, but they still prefer fruit when it's available, often going miles out of their way to find especially preferred fruits. In contrast, humans consume a large proportion of highly processed, low fiber foods, unusual proportions of grains and vertebrate flesh, as well as a wide variety of other foodstuffs. The teeth are similar to those of the
Old World monkeys and
gibbons, although they're especially large in the gorilla. The
dental formula is: Human teeth and jaws are markedly smaller for our size than those of other apes. Some scholars have surmised that humans' small teeth and jaws are adaptations to eating cooked food for possibly as long as a million years or more. This idea remains controversial.
Gestation in great apes lasts 8-9 months, and results in the birth of a single offspring, or, rarely, twins. The young are born helpless, and the mother must care for them for long periods of time. Compared with most other mammals, great apes have a remarkably long adolescence, not being
weaned for several years, and not becoming fully mature for 8-13 years in most species (longer in humans). As a result, females typically give birth only once every few years. There is no distinct breeding season. and gorillas in the genus
Homo along with humans, but it's more commonly accepted to describe the relationships as shown here.
Many extinct hominids have been studied to help understand the relationship between modern humans and the other extant hominids. Some of the extinct members of this family include
Gigantopithecus,
Orrorin,
Ardipithecus,
Kenyanthropus, and the
australopithecines
Australopithecus and
Paranthropus.
The exact criteria for membership in the Homininae are not clear, but the subfamily generally includes those
species that share more than 97% of their
DNA with the modern human
genome, and exhibit a capacity for
language or for simple
cultures beyond the family or band. The
theory of mind including such faculties as mental state attribution, empathy and even empathetic deception is a controversial criterion distinguishing the adult human alone among the hominids. Humans acquire this capacity at about four and a half years of age, whereas it has neither been proven nor disproven that gorillas and chimpanzees develop a theory of mind. This is also the case for some
new world monkeys outside the family of great apes, as, for example, the
capuchin monkeys.
However, without the ability to test whether early members of the Homininae (such as
Homo erectus,
Homo neanderthalensis, or even the australopithecines) had a theory of mind, it's difficult to ignore similarities seen in their living cousins. Despite an apparent lack of real culture and significant physiological and psychological differences, some say that the orangutan may also satisfy these criteria. These scientific debates take on political significance for advocates of
Great Ape personhood.
Evolution
In 2002, a 6–7 million year old
fossil skull nicknamed "Toumaï" by its discoverers, and formally classified as
Sahelanthropus tchadensis, was discovered in
Chad and is possibly the earliest hominid
fossil ever found. In addition to its age, Toumaï, unlike the 3–4 million year younger
gracile australopithecine dubbed "
Lucy", has a relatively flat face without the prominent snout seen on other pre-
Homo hominids. Some researchers have made the suggestion that this previously unknown species may in fact be a direct ancestor of modern humans (or at least closely related to a direct ancestor). Others contend that one fossil isn't enough to make such a claim because it would overturn the conclusions of over 100 years of
anthropological study. A report on this finding was published in the journal
Nature on
July 11,
2002. While some scientists claim that it's merely the skull of a female gorilla ancestor, others have called it the most important hominin fossil since
Australopithecus.
In addition to the Toumai fossil, some experts use evidence from the genome to argue that the species associated with the chimpanzees and proto-humans split interbred over a long period of time, swapping genes, before making a final separation. A paper, whose authors include
David Reich and
Eric Lander (Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)), was published in journal
Nature in May 2006.
It is generally believed that the
Pan/Homo split occurred about 6.5–7.4 million years ago, but the
molecular clock (a method of calculating evolution based on the speed at which genes mutate) suggests the genera split 5.4–6.3 million years ago. Previous studies looked at average genetic differences between human and chimp. The new study compares the ages of key sequences of genes of modern humans and modern chimps. Some sequences are younger than others, indicating that chimps and humans gradually split apart over a period of 4 million years. The youngest human chromosome is the X sex chromosome which is about 1.2 million years more recent than the 22 autosomes. The X chromosome is known to be vulnerable to selective pressure. Its age suggests there was an initial split between the two species, followed by gradual divergence and interbreeding that resulted in younger genes, and then a final separation.
Species
The seven living species of great ape are classified in four
genera.
Family Hominidae: humans and other great apes; extinct genera and species excluded.[
]- Subfamily Ponginae
- Genus Pongo
- Subfamily Homininae
- Tribe Gorillini
- Genus Gorilla
- Western Gorilla, Gorilla gorilla
- Eastern Gorilla, Gorilla beringei
- Tribe Hominini
- Genus Pan
- Common Chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes
- Central Chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes troglodytes
- West African Chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes verus
- Nigerian Chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes vellerosus
- Eastern Chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii
- Bonobo (Pygmy Chimpanzee), Pan paniscus
- Genus Homo
- Human, Homo sapiens sapiens
In addition to the extant species and subspecies above, archaeologists, paleontologists, and anthropologists have discovered numerous extinct species. The list below are some of the genera of those discoveries.
Subfamily Ponginae
Subfamily Homininae
Further Information
Get more info on 'Pongidae'.
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