Both subspecies have large heads, broad chests, flat noses, and very long arms. Some apes can take as long as 12 to 18 years to fully develop into an adult. Apes are herbivores for the most part, but they also may eat small animals or bugs to supplement their diet. Gibbons, for example, eat mostly fruit, but they also munch on leaves, flowers and insects. Orangutans eat a fruit diet that is supplemented with vegetation, invertebrates, mineral-rich soil and small vertebrates. A chimp’s diet is mainly fruits supplemented with insects, birds and small mammals, according to the Center for Great Apes.

Wonderful Types of Lesser Apes

That way, you can show your friends and family that you’re not monkeying around with your encyclopedic ape knowledge. The diet of hominoids includes leaves, seeds, nuts, fruit, and a limited amount of animal prey. They are the largest arboreal (tree dwelling) animal in the world, reaching heights of four to five feet and weights of 125 to 235 pounds or more. Orangutans are reddish-brown in color and some males grow white or yellow beards. Also characteristic are their bare faces with round eyes and small ears; their long, shaggy hair; long arms; and curled fingers and feet.

Field study

The chimpanzee lives in groups that range in size from 15 to 150 members, although individuals travel and forage in much smaller groups during the day. The species lives in a strict male-dominated hierarchy, where disputes are generally settled without the need for violence. Nearly all chimpanzee populations have been recorded using tools, modifying sticks, rocks, grass and leaves and using them for hunting and acquiring honey, termites, ants, nuts and water. The species has also been found creating sharpened sticks to spear small mammals. The infant is weaned at about three years old but usually maintains a close relationship with its mother for several years more.

More from Merriam-Webster on ape

Chimpanzees are widely known to be one of the most intelligent of the primate species. They frequently use tools in the wild for gathering food and performing other tasks. Alternatively, the Cross River gorilla is easily the least populous of all the gorilla subspecies. The Cross River gorilla is found only along the headwaters of the Cross River in the Nigeria-Cameroon border region. It’s believed that there are only about 250 adults left in the wild of this subspecies. Found only on the northernmost part of the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, the Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii) is a large, critically endangered great ape.

It often vocalizes in a duet, but sometimes, an entire family will join in to create a song with an organized sequence, an event that’s truly a wonder to behold. Additionally, we humans are the only great ape species that lives on more than one continent as all the other species are restricted to either Asia or Africa. However, all chimp subspecies are listed as endangered, mostly due to habitat https://cryptolisting.org/ loss. Some people have also attempted to keep chimps as pets, but this is both illegal in many places and not recommended as they can be aggressive when kept in captivity. In this article, we’ll introduce you to the 26 different types of apes, including the 8 types of great apes and 16 types of lesser apes. In the entire animal kingdom, we humans have no closer cousin than the apes.

Ape, Any of the tailless primates known as the lesser apes (gibbons and siamangs; family Hylobatidae) or the great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, and gorillas; family Hominidae). Apes are found in the tropical forests of western and central Africa and South Asia. They are distinguished from monkeys by having no tail, having an appendix, and having a more complex brain.

They spend more time in the trees than the other great apes, though they are only found in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Gibbons, for example, live in small family groups of two to six individuals. Siamangs are so close that they almost never wander more than 30 feet (10 m) apart, according to the San Diego Zoo. Chimpanzees are the most social of all the apes, and live in communities with 15 to 120 individuals.

The most recent of these far-flung Miocene apes (hominoids) is Oreopithecus, from the fossil-rich coal beds in northern Italy and dated to 9 million years ago. The tarsiers belong to the infraorder Tarsiiformes, which includes smaller, tree-dwelling primates that are now only found in southeastern Asia. The simians, on the other hand, are members of the infraorder Simiiformes, which includes the New World monkeys, the Old World monkeys, and the apes. The fourth and final genus of lesser apes, the genus Nomascus is a collection of seven gibbon species.

1. We do know, however, that the Bornean white-bearded gibbon was once considered to be a subspecies of the agile gibbon, but DNA evidence now suggests that it should be a separate species.
2. Eleven of sixteen species of gibbons are endangered or critically endangered.
3. Fossil genera include Catopithecus and Aegyptopithecus, possible successive ancestors of both the Old World monkeys and the apes.
4. The species lives in a strict male-dominated hierarchy, where disputes are generally settled without the need for violence.
5. From a scientific standpoint, we can classify all species within the superfamily Hominoidea as apes.

One of the most poorly understood gibbon species, the Kloss’s gibbon (Hylobates klossii), or Mentawai gibbon, is found only on the Mentawai Islands, which are located to the west of Sumatra. The Skywalker hoolock gibbon (Hoolock tianxing) is a relatively rare and little-researched gibbon found primarily in the Yunnan Province of China and in easter Myanmar. It was first described in academic literature in January 2017, so the species is not well understood. These gibbons are known to be omnivorous as they enjoy a diet of fruits, invertebrates, eggs, and lichens. However, they particularly enjoy figs, which they can find throughout their home range. Now, that definition might not be very helpful, as monkeys, like baboons and macaques, are also a type of primate.

The original meaning of the term referred to only humans and their closest relatives—what is now the modern meaning of the term “hominin”. The meaning of the taxon Hominidae changed gradually, leading to a modern usage of “hominid” that how to reconcile accounts payable accountingtools includes all the great apes including humans. The earliest fossils argued by some to belong to the human lineage are Sahelanthropus tchadensis (7 Ma) and Orrorin tugenensis (6 Ma), followed by Ardipithecus (5.5–4.4 Ma), with species Ar.

The other hominoid groups are less diverse and include chimpanzees (2 species), gorillas (2 species), orangutans (2 species), and humans (1 species). Like most primates, hominoids form social groups, the structure of which varies from species to species. Lesser apes form monogamous pairs while gorillas live in troops numbering in the range of 5 to 10 or more individuals. Chimpanzees also form troops that can number as many as 40 to 100 individuals. Orangutans are the exception to the primate social norm, they lead solitary lives. Many ape species are endangered according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species.