On Friday I gave you this skull to identify from the Balcony in the Natural History Gallery at the Horniman Museum:
I must say that I was very impressed with the response – diet was quickly identified by Rosa Rubicondior, Will Chapman and Carlos Grau then Stephen J Henstridge spotted that this was the skull of Bandicoot and Jack Ashby, cromercrox and Jamie Revell all dropped hints (or blatantly stated) that this was the skull of a Continue reading
This Friday I’m giving you a mystery object that’s on display at the Horniman Museum:
[EDIT length = 8.5cm]
Any idea what this skull is from?
As usual, you can put your suggestions, comments and questions below and I’ll do my best to answer. Good luck!
On Good Friday I gave you this object and asked ‘Any idea what this skull belongs to?‘
Given the levels of pedantism on the Internet, I’m surprised that no-one said ‘the Horniman Museum‘, which would have been a correct answer to the question, since this specimen was bought in 1936 from the German natural history supply company Schlüter and Mass and it therefore belongs to the Museum.
However, you all clearly knew I meant belonged, since you did a great job of working out which species this skull came from.
Jake immediately ruled out the large British native carnivores (Fox and Badger) and several questions later had Jamie Revell hot on the trail, only to be pipped to the post by David Craven. Kudos also goes to Carlos Grau and Gina who both came very close.
This skull belonged to an Continue reading
Yes, apes are monkeys and therefore so are we. I’ve said it before and I’ve given my reasons, other biology types have said it and given their reasons, yet a crime against pedantry rages unabated.
There are some important questions in life and this probably isn’t one of them, but it seems to have generated a lot of debate, so it’s clearly a topic that needs resolution.
If apes are indeed monkeys as I suggest, why do so many intelligent and knowledgeable people insist that apes are not monkeys? I think that perhaps it’s because apes didn’t used to be monkeys.
Let me explain. Taxonomy is the science of naming things and it was established as a discipline by Carl Linnaeus in the mid 1700’s. Evolutionary theory was not part of science at the time, so there was no real understanding of why species formed recognisable groups with shared common features – but those shared features proved useful for classification.
Linnaeus – and the taxonomists that followed in his footsteps – went about classifying things based on the presence or absence of physical and behavioural characteristics.
According to the Linnaean system of classification monkeys were medium or small in size and had tails, whereas apes were medium to large in size and didn’t have tails. Simple, apes were not monkeys – except the Barbary Ape Macaca sylvanus (Linnaeus, 1758), which was quite obviously a monkey despite being medium-sized and having no tail… spot the problem?
Of course I’m an ape – look, no tail – Barbary Macaque CORRECTION Crested Black Macaque (Macaca nigra) aka the Sulawesi Black Ape – Thanks Prancing Papio
In the 1950’s a taxonomist called Willi Hennig had the bright idea of applying an understanding of evolutionary relationships to taxonomic classifications – he called this phylogenetic systematics. It was an idea that made sense, because rather than basing groups on arbitrary characters that might be open to convergent evolution (like becoming tailless), species could be grouped together (in something called a ‘clade’) according to common ancestry. What a nifty idea!
However, this idea has taken time to get established, since identifying clades means compiling and analysing a huge amount of data. It wasn’t until computers became capable of taking on some of the workload that phylogenetic systematics (or cladistics) became properly established – in real terms this meant that progress was slow until the mid-to-late 1990s.
Computers running cladistic analyses can tell us if apes are monkeys.
Since cladistics has taken off, there has been an effort to marry Linnean classification terms with evolutionary classifications where possible, to limit the confusion caused when discussing groups of organisms. There are rules in the form of PhyloCode, but they don’t really address common names associated with clades.
As a result this revolution in taxonomy has been largely ignored by the public and indeed by scientists not involved in the process. Nonetheless, it directly impacts on how biological terms are used. In this instance the issue impacts on whether apes should be considered monkeys – the fact that they share a clade, suggests that they should.
Neither ‘monkey’ nor ‘ape’ are proper scientific terms, but both are commonly used in scientific literature, so they should have formal recognition as valid biological terms. That means that they should be aligned with definable clades, since that’s how taxonomy is done these days. In this case the Simiiformes clade for monkeys and Hominoidea for apes.
Common usage of biological terminology may be slow to follow the science, but if it wasn’t related to taxonomy we’d still be calling whales ‘fish’ (which is a fascinating story in its own right). Certainly there would be no justification for denying that apes were monkeys if people were not referring back to traditional taxonomy, because the term would be defined by usage alone and people do call apes monkeys.
In fact, it’s only seems to be in English that a distinction is made between apes and monkeys in common terminology and even then the terms have long been used interchangeably.
Of course a hard-liner can argue that we should just ditch the terms monkey and ape and stick with proper scientific terminology. I agree with the logic from a scientific perspective, but culturally it would be a bit much to expect the public to toe the scientific hard-line.
If the term monkey is to remain, it should at least be meaningful, which requires the cladistic definition and the inclusion of apes. As explained in more detail in the video below [NB contains swearing]
Let’s face it, it doesn’t really matter if apes are called monkeys.
Monkey is a more generic term than ape, which means it’s not very accurate or meaningful when talking about apes. Therefore it’s not really very appropriate unless the person using the term has a limited ability to identify very characteristic primates.
These are good reasons for not using the term monkey when referring to an ape, but nonetheless an ape is still a monkey. So feel free to criticise the use of monkey when referring to a Chimpanzee (for example), but don’t do it by saying that Chimps aren’t monkeys, because you’d be the one who is wrong – at least from a cladistic perspective.
I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of monkeying around the topic.
This week I’ve decided not to opt for an Eastery mystery object and stick with skulls – hopefully nothing too difficult, but enough to be a challenge. Any idea what this skull belongs to?
As usual I will try to respond to any questions comments or suggestions below.
Good luck and have a lovely Easter Bank Holiday!
Martin Robbins wrote a fun piece in The Lay Scientist the other day on the incorrect use of the term monkeys to describe apes (triggered by an article by Graham Smith for the Daily Mail). In Martin’s words:
A great crime against pedantry is in progress and it’s time for someone to draw a line
So as a pedant with a professional interest in this issue I am taking my stand, to help ensure that a miscarriage of pedantic justice doesn’t occur.
Apes are monkeys in the same way that monkeys are primates, humans are apes and I am a human – it’s called a nested hierarchy.
This means that all apes are monkeys, but not all monkeys are apes. Just as all humans are apes, but not all apes are human. By the same token, humans are all ape, contrary to the title of the otherwise rather good book 99% Ape: How Evolution Adds Up.
This nested hierarchical system is the mainstay of biological taxonomy – each individual fits in its species (with the possible exception of hybrids), each species in its genus, each genus in its family and so on. It’s how Linnaeus organised things back in the 1750’s and it works remarkably well. [EDIT it’s actually a bit more complex than that]
Linnaeus’ system works well in biology because species share varying degrees of similarity depending on when they branched off from a common ancestor. The groups with most shared characteristics can be clumped together. That’s a bit tricky to explain in a few words, so here’s a simple diagram:
Primate phylogeny adapted to show clades. Image adapted from handout used by Mr. Krauz (click image for link to source)
The groups that form after a branching event are called ‘clades’ and the members of the group can correctly be referred to by the name of any of the clades that they are part of. This is known as monophyly (which means one leaf).
If a name is given to a group of species that are not all related in this way it will either be a polyphyletic group (many leaves) or a paraphyletic group (excluding leaves). Again, this can be confusing to describe, so here’s another diagram:
Monophyly, paraphyly and polyphyly in the vertebrates – from Wikipedia (click image for source)
Polyphyletic and paraphyletic groups are not particularly scientifically informative, since they include or exclude members of clades with no evolutionary justification. This means that scientists prefer to base names for groups on clear monophyletic clades.
That’s a scientific argument for considering apes to be monkeys.
Aha! I must make it clear that I have been using the term monkey as a direct match for the term Simiiformes (which includes the Old and New World monkeys, the lesser apes and the great apes) in the discussion above, but is that valid?
Obviously I argue that it is, since I’ve been using it – the question should be why wouldn’t it be valid? The only logically robust answer (that I can think of) is that it wouldn’t be valid if people don’t commonly use the two terms to refer to the same things. So do people use the term monkey to refer to the apes?
The simple fact is that this whole discussion has been raised because Graham Smith published an article in which he refer to apes as monkeys, which demonstrates that monkey is indeed used as a generic term to refer to apes.
Another example is Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, where the Librarian (who happens to be an Orang-utan) dislikes being referred to as a monkey, which happens regularly – it may be fiction, but it seems reasonable to suggest that it reflects the use of terminology of real people.
In addition, I would suggest that it’s helpful for common terms for biological groups to directly reflect the scientific terminology as much as possible, since this improves the ability of scientists to communicate with a non-specialist audience. So even if monkey didn’t mean the same as Simiiformes (which it seems to) it probably should. Otherwise monkey has no scientifically meaningful analogue, since it would refer to a paraphyletic (and therefore arbitrary) grouping.
I think that my argument is pretty robust and I’ll stand by it until I hear something convincing enough to change my mind.
That said, I will add an important caveat – monkey is a generic term and when referring to Chimpanzees, Gorillas, Gibbons, Orang-utans and Humans the more specific term of ape should be used for clarity. After all, you don’t refer to your pet cat as a pet carnivore, or a budgie as a theropod, because generic terms omit a lot of additional information.
So although apes are monkeys, they are still apes – and that means something.
On Friday I gave you this cute little chap to identify:
I was very impressed with Neil’s comment, which managed to convey the scientific name of the species without giving it away. Here’s what he said:
I see one eye and two fingers
which neatly leads us to Continue reading
This week I’m going to give you an object that’s on display at the Horniman Museum. Whenever I see this specimen I’m reminded of the diversity of life that is out there in the wider world, that we never consider normally. Any idea what this skeleton belongs to?
As usual, I will do my best to reply to your questions, observations and suggestions in the comments section below.
Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this archaeological mystery object from Surrey to identify:
Jake immediately spotted that it was the mandible of a carnivore and ruled out a Cat because the teeth were wrong. General consensus leaned towards this being from a mustelid of some kind – which David Craven confirmed with the correct identification of Continue reading
This week I’m going to give you something to identify from an archaeological excavation near Coulsdon in Surrey. It was associated with human remains and some clay pipes that suggest an approximate date between 1600-1850AD. Any idea what this section of mandible belonged to?
After getting the scale wrong last week I have made sure that there are scale bars in the image this time!
As usual you can put your questions, observations and suggestions in the comments section below and I’ll do my best to respond. Good luck!
I’d like to begin by apologising for providing misleading information about Friday’s mystery object – I omitted a scale bar and then described the skull as being 4cm long. It goes to show how even a small amount of time can addle one’s memory, since this skull is in fact 7cm long:
I thought it would prove an easy one to identify, since it’s from a very well known species that I have talked about before – but the identification was made more difficult because it is a very young individual. This fact is clear from the lack of fusion of the bones and the lack of teeth. CopilasDenis and David Craven both spotted this and they also picked up on the fact that this skull is from a carnivore – as did ObenedO.
As to what species this skull comes from, no-one really came very close. In fact I was surprised when Jake said:
It doesn’t look catty or doggy or sheepy or deery.
since this is actually the skull of a Continue reading
After last week’s fiendishly tricky mystery object I’ve decided to give you a much easier one. Any idea what this is?
As usual I will do my best to answer your questions and provide guidance – good luck!
On Friday the mystery object was provided by Mark Carnall, the curator of the newly reopened Grant Museum of Zoology:
It’s not been an easy one to work out – I thought it was part of a fish skull when I first saw it and comments have ranged from a squashed frog to Yoda’s foot.
The closest suggestions came from Jamie Revell, Steven D. Garber, PhD and Helen (sort of…), this is the Continue reading
This Friday we have a guest mystery object from the newly reopened (and rather fantastic) Grant Museum of Zoology:
I got this one wrong when I first saw it – I hope you manage to do better!
I’ll do my best to give clues and answers to questions during the day, but hopefully Mark and Jack from the Grant will be able to provide some guidance as well. More about the awesome new Grant Museum on Monday with the answer. Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this fluid preserved specimen to identify:
I probably made this one a bit harder than I could have, by not giving you a photo from the other side, but then that would have made it too easy:
It seems that Neil was the only person who may have correctly identified this specimen, as hinted in this comment:
Knowing it’s an embryo give me some idea (possibly incorrect) of the orientation: tail and hind-limbs at top, trunk, then forelimbs at lower left and the head, unhelpfully facing away from us, at lower right. It would then appear to be a quadrapedal tetrapod, probably (?) a mammal. Based on the apparent shape of the feet and possibly the hint of an ear I’m going to say …
This is of course assuming that Neil deliberately chose the word ‘trunk’ to indicate that he had worked out that this is the embryo of an Continue reading
This week I thought it would be nice to give you a bit of a break from the usual skulls, so this week I have a fluid preserved specimen for you to identify:
It may just look like a small white blob, but it’s my favourite small white blob ever. Can you work out what it is?
As usual you can put your observations, comments and suggestions below and I’ll do my best to respond. Good luck!
On Friday I was at the Natural Science Collections Association conference in Newcastle, which was a very enjoyable couple of days spent with other natural scientists discussing issues relating to natural history collections. The downside was that I wasn’t really able to respond to comments particularly well.
However, it turns out that you didn’t really need my input, since there were some great clues by other commentators, that helped with the identification of this object:
Jake spotted that it was the nasal cavities and teeth (the premaxilla and part of the maxilla) of a marine mammal and Jonpaulkaiser identified that it belonged to a Continue reading
This Friday I’m at a conference in sunny Newcastle, so I might not get to answer questions on this post until a bit later in the day, but I have a feeling you won’t need my help on this one! Any idea what this object from the Horniman collection might be?
Please do feel free to ask questions and make suggestions below – I will do my very best to respond. Good luck!
On Friday I gave you this piece of skull to identify:
It was in the Horniman collections with no identification beyond a pencil note saying ‘Monkey?’, but that seemed to be a bit of an odd suggestion, since primates have very rounded braincases – even the longer skulled ones like baboons. I think the person who made the tentative identification had got the section the wrong way round – thinking that the nuchal crest was a part of a brow-ridge or something – a mistake that Jake certainly didn’t make. They also missed what several of you spotted – the rugose (sort of wrinkly) structure that supported the olfactory epithelium (the inner back part of the nose where the receptors for smell are located).
What most of you did miss however, was the lack of fusion of the cranial sutures, which indicates that this was from a juvenile animal. As a result it is smaller and has far less well-developed muscle scars than an adult animal would have. A faint muscle scar can be seen converging on what looks like the beginnings of a sagittal crest (as pointed out by Manabu Sakamoto), so it seems reasonable to guess that the adult animal would have a reasonably well developed crest on the top of the braincase.
Eventually Neil dropped a couple of hints that showed he knew what it was and David Craven and KateKatV also suggested that they knew that it was part of the braincase of a juvenile Continue reading
I apologise in advance for providing a slightly short answer to this week’s mystery object – I found myself a bit strapped for time between responding to Intelligent Design types trolling my blog here and at Scientopia, writing a talk for Skeptics In the Pub tomorrow evening and trying to sort out my laptop power lead after it broke (now fixed thanks to the helpful staff at Maplins who gave me the parts I needed to make repairs).
On Friday I gave you this object to identify, thinking that it might be a fun challenge:
As it turns out it seems to have been a good one, since most of you managed to work out what it’s from. There were some great hints dropped and I think that the comments proved to be a useful resource for those who weren’t sure, but they didn’t detract too much from the fun of working it out. Thanks to everyone for being awesome!
The first to correctly identify both the type of bone and the species it came from was Cromercrox, who gave a great rationale for his suggestion: Continue reading
Zygoma 