Talk:Old World monkey

Teeth
What is the dentition difference that is used to distinguish apes from old world monkeys? As far as I know, it is new world monkeys that have the odd dentition (2-1-3-3), whereas old world monkeys and apes have 2-1-2-3. Iffykid 07:23, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, I just remembered that Apes have Y-5 teeth and old world monkeys have bilophodont teeth. Is this really the technical distinction of OW monkeys from apes? Iffykid 22:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

This portion is missing a key diagnostic feature that is mentioned by the poster above. OWMs have a characteristic bilophodont dentition, with 2 paired (4 total) cusps per tooth on both the upper and lower molars. These form visible parallel rows (lophs) of cusps mesio-distally along the dental arch. Apes in comparison have the aforementioned Y-5 patterned lower molars, both have the same dental formula of 2.1.2.3 99.227.24.168 (talk) 05:09, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

This should be clarified with the honing complex, which should be added to the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.120.105.146 (talk) 03:15, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Europe
The following sentence is taken from the article's lead:

"The Old World monkeys are native to Africa and Asia today, inhabiting a range of environments from tropical rain forest to savanna, scrubland, and mountainous terrain, and are also known from Europe in the fossil record."

This implies that monkeys no longer exist in Europe except in captivity. However, this is not true. (See: Gibraltar Barbary Macaques) Shouldn't this be mentioned as the only surviving group of monkeys in Europe? --Gibmetal 77 talk 08:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Isn't it yet still undertermined if the macaques there got there on their own? For if they were brought there by humans, the quote remains true. If they managed to get there on their own, then the quote is just narely not true. - UtherSRG (talk) 08:54, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I do see your point. However, the fact that they are the only wild monkeys in Europe should somehow be mentioned here. --Gibmetal 77 talk 09:23, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I've included a single sentence to briefly mention this. --Gibmetal 77 talk 21:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Non-human primates?
I found this bit weird: "'Old World monkeys include many of the most familiar species of non-human primates such as baboons and macaques.'" First of all, species within Catarrhini, outside of Cercopithecidae, include all of Hominoidea (i.e. gibbons and Great Apes, which includes humans), so "non-human monkeys" (let alone non-human primates, as is written) would be highly missleading. "non-ape monkeys" would be somewhat understandable, though it ignores New World monkeys. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.225.29.142 (talk) 10:49, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Article Currently Confused Between Catarrhines and Cercopithecidae
The term "Old World Monkeys" should properly mean the Catarrhines, in opposition to the "New World Monkeys", the Platyrrhines.

The "Apes" (in the phylogenic sense), are a sub-category of "Old World Monkey", alongside Cercopithecidae. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.180.30.135 (talk) 12:46, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Gibbons
This article claims Gibbons are Old World Monkey, but the Gibbon and Ape articles classify Gibbons as lesser apes, distinct from old world monkeys. Anyone know how to resolve this? 173.75.1.12 (talk) 03:31, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * They're unambiguously apes, the article was mistaken. Trilobright (talk) 01:38, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 17 July 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved. No support for this proposal. (non-admin closure) В²C ☎ 20:25, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Old World monkey → Cercopithecidae – Avoid confusion: Catarrhini was originally defined as Old world monkey. See .. Catarrhini, "Old World monkeys", or "singes de l'Ancien continent"

Jmv2009 (talk) 04:14, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * "Old World Monkey" can be redirected to Cercopithecidae for now, just after the move. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmv2009 (talk • contribs) 04:26, 17 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:RECOGNIZE. I understand the issue that the OP is highlighting, but in the real world this confusion doesn't really exist. Very few people would think of humans or other apes as "Old World monkeys", and the term is widely used as the common name for the specific family Cercopithecidae. Except for highly ambiguous terms such as great ape, I think where common names exist we should use them. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 10:32, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Think of the situation BEFORE there apes and Cercopithecidae existed. The New World monkeys are the ones that left for the Americas. The apes emerged in the simians that stayed behind. That we would not belong to the simians that stayed behind would be a misconception. Jmv2009 (talk) 12:46, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose per common name. Rreagan007 (talk) 13:52, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Please note the policy w.r.t. ambiguous names. Old World Monkey can be considered ambiguous, at least in the literature. Also, the fact that humans were brought into this discussion is a sign of human bias. In fact not assigning apes to old world monkey smells like deliberate misleading i.m.h.o. Jmv2009 (talk) 16:42, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * recent refs.     — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmv2009 (talk • contribs) 17:29, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose As per Amakuru - OP names a legitimate issue, but I don't think it requires a title swap to address. We want the material to be present under the commonly used name, if possible; if confusions exist, they can be concisely pointed out and referred to Catarrhini (which goes into some detail). Clarifying Old_World_monkey a little, and then inserting a sentence to this effect into the lede, would be helpful. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:27, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * In the intro, one needs to at least explain what is being addressed. Tried that. With the confusion and asanine history, couldn't do it a single sentence.Jmv2009 (talk) 16:44, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I'm going to undo that for now. This is overkill, or rather misplaced. What's wrong with something like "The name has historically been applied to the parvorder Catarrhini, but in recent usage generally refers to the superfamily Cercopithecoidea within that taxon."? Then put all this material into Old_World_monkey. If something impels you to add a dozen references to the lede (which ideally should have no refs at all), it's usually an indication that something is not covered sufficiently in the body itself. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:53, 18 July 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.