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Author Topic:   True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1046 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 142 of 154 (819176)
09-07-2017 2:26 PM
Reply to: Message 140 by RAZD
09-07-2017 8:02 AM


Homisomethings...
The confusion of the various ranks named after Homo comes from changes in definition.
Once upon a time, 'Hominidae' meant only humans and extinct relatives. The other great apes were classified in 'Pongidae'. The two collectively formed the superfamily Hominoidea.
Then, along came the first molecular studies, which indicated that African apes were more closely related to humans than to orangutans. As it became more and more common to consider paraphyletic taxa invalid, taxonomists started to point out that Pongidae was not valid, at least not if it included gorillas and chimps. The change was slow, particularly because palaeoanthropologists had been so long accustomed to use 'hominid' to mean anything closer to us than apes. But to be monophyletic, either chimps and gorillas had to be moved into Hominidae, or a new 'Gorillidae' would need to be invented.
The realisation from DNA studies that chimps were closer to us than they were to gorillas would have necessitated an additional Panidae, so the solution that eventually prevailed, and has by now been accepted pretty much universally, is to abolish Pongidae and subsume all great apes under Hominidae. Use of the narrower terms 'Homininae', 'Hominini' and 'Hominina' is not always consistent though, leading to confusion.
As the for the question of the difference between Hominoidea and Hominoidae - the latter is a typo.

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 Message 140 by RAZD, posted 09-07-2017 8:02 AM RAZD has replied

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1046 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


(2)
Message 149 of 154 (819468)
09-11-2017 12:49 PM
Reply to: Message 146 by herebedragons
09-09-2017 10:09 AM


Re: dendrogram corrections
I like to use the Tree of Life Project (ToL) as a pretty good source for the latest taxonomic classifications. They may not include the most recent updates or the more controversial rearrangements, but they are pretty close. Taxonomy is very contentious (and the human tree even more so) and taxonomists argue and argue about their particular view until a general consensus is reached and then most researchers will adopt the consensus view, but it can take a while til the literature reflects the newest changes. With the advent of molecular methodology and now with deep sequencing techniques, the taxonomic world has gone crazy and there are many competing views on particular groups.
I don't think ToL is a good source for the latest classifications. I can't comment on most of the tree; but vertebrate phylogeny is a bit of a hobby; and here at least ToL seemed to stop updating well over a decade ago. Their vertebrate trees represent what was the conservative view in the 1990s. In 2017 that means they're flat out wrong.
While there are lots of issues that are still controversial (where do turtles go, for example); there are many things long universally accepted that ToL contradicts, and I very much wish someone was still updating it, because at the moment it's just misleading.
Open Tree of Life is much more up-to-date; but the problem with this is that it does incorporate a lot of still controversial ideas, and unlike ToLWeb it doesn't tell you when this is the case, nor present alternative hypotheses.

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 Message 146 by herebedragons, posted 09-09-2017 10:09 AM herebedragons has replied

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1046 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 150 of 154 (819469)
09-11-2017 1:08 PM
Reply to: Message 148 by RAZD
09-10-2017 8:20 AM


Re: all together now ...
The completist in me is concerned that your tree gives the impression baboons are the only Old World monkey. I tried to edit it but for some reason cannot get the branches to line up properly.
Still, if people thought palaeos diagrams are hard to read - see what happens when I draw it!

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 Message 148 by RAZD, posted 09-10-2017 8:20 AM RAZD has replied

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1046 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 153 of 154 (819538)
09-12-2017 1:01 PM
Reply to: Message 152 by RAZD
09-11-2017 4:50 PM


Re: all together now ...
I'll give it a try tomorrow. Is that "Odd nosed group" in the middle?
Yes, 'odd-nosed group'; so named because it contains snub-nosed monkeys and the proboscis monkey. I can't find that anyone's ever proposed a formal name for it.
I think Wikipedia is a good source for the consensus on major groups. They often feature the major competing hypotheses where things are not settled.
Pages which attract less interest often promote outdated or new-fangled hypotheses because of one determined editor, however. Purgatorius is usually considered a stem-primate; but a couple of recent studies instead find that it's outside the clade formed by living placentals. There's an editor who refuses to accept this as a hypothesis; so it's a fact as far as Wiki is concerned.

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 Message 152 by RAZD, posted 09-11-2017 4:50 PM RAZD has replied

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