'Original' great ape discovered [New genus "Missing Link" found!]

BBC ^ | 2/18/07 | Paul Rincon

[joseph20]

Which is that chimpanzees and humans are more closely related than gorillas and chimpanzees.

It doesn't look that way on the face of it. Lined up all 3 in a row, I'd pick out the two sloped-back hairy beasts with hands for feet as being more alike than the bare-skinned frail-framed body of a human.

[joseph20]

Because we have molecular (which is considered much more highly reliable, in the short term - eg, <100 mya) rather than simply morphological/behavioral evidence now.

I figured it must be something in the microscope that makes you think that humans and chimps are more alike than gorillas and chimps. Using your own two eyes and common sense, it sounds absurd you must admit!

[Tax-chick]

They found a monkey. This is news?

[joseph20]

I wonder how they know that these are not just the "elephant man" equivalents for monkeys?

Out of all the old monkey bones they dig up, they finally find a freak and automatically it's thought to belong to a species of it's own?

[Tax-chick]

Like the deformed dolphin recently, that "proved" dolphins evolved from 4-legged land animals.

People see what they want to see.

[mewzilla]

They found a monkey.

They found an ape apparently :)

Is there a difference between monkeys and apes?

[Alouette]

[Tax-chick]

How interesting! Now I know :-).

[mewzilla]

That critter's got a nice set of choppers, doesn't he? Wow.

[mewzilla]

I just ran across this...

www.boneclones.com

For anyone who needs a conversation piece :)

[joseph20]

They found an ape apparently :)

Is there a difference between monkeys and apes?

============================================

Interesting that, according to the link you posted, only gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans and gibbons are considered to be apes. From the link:

Hominids are distinguished from apes mainly by mode of locomotion. While apes predominantly use all four limbs to move along the ground, hominids have developed upright bipedal walking -- that is, they walk erect, using only their hind limbs.

============================================

There is also this definition provided by answers.com:

pon·gid (pŏn'jĭd)
n.
An anthropoid ape of the family Pongidae, which includes the chimpanzee, gorilla, and orangutan.

[Tax-chick]

Yes, I wouldn't want to get too close to those teeth.

[Tax-chick]

Now that's cool. Expensive, though.

[pax_et_bonum]

Oh, I thought they had found a genius missing link.

[sirchtruth]

could have been

This is the point you realize it's NOT proof anymore, but conjecture.

Just like the major claim of evolution...it's just conjecture.

It amazing to see such smart people make all these wonderful discoveries, but turn into such gulible, unwise, dupes when it comes to claiming truth.

[mewzilla]

Here's a link on the subject from the Smithsonian...

The Human Origins Progam Resource Guide to Paleoanthropology

On the left side of the screen is a menu. Click on Primates, found under Primate Origins.

From the link:

The earliest monkeys and apes evolved from ancestral haplorhine (meaning "dry nosed") primates, of which the most primitive living representative is the tarsier. Tarsiers were previously grouped with prosimians, but many scientists now recognize that tarsiers, monkeys, and apes share some distinctive traits, and group the three together. Monkeys, apes, and humans -- who share many traits not found in other primates -- together make up the suborder Anthropoidea. Anthropoid primates are divided into New World (South America, Central America, and the Caribbean Islands) and Old World (Africa and Eurasia) groups. The platyrrhine (broad-nosed) monkeys represent the first, and the second is the catarrhine (downward-nosed) monkeys and apes. Humans belong to this second group.

[mewzilla]

LOL. I've got a replica of a claw from a Deinonychus. It scares my cat.

[Tax-chick]

I'll bet it would!

[Hatteras]

There's no "link" between man and apes. That's preposterous!

Signed,
This guy...