Talk:Old World monkey

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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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

I've included a single sentence to briefly mention this. --Gibmetal 77^talk 21:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

non-human?

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.