Not to worry, I still have a post in the making about all the squirrel stuff, you know, if you care. But while that's still going, I have yet another fun fact which may brighten your day (or just bore you).
Today's fun fact concerns a common misconception which many people have regarding the grouping of primates. Namely, people tend to mis- or over-use the term "monkey". For instance, after viewing "King Kong" (which is a kick-ass movie, by the way, particularly Peter Jackson's remake), you might feel inclined to say "aw, that poor monkey". To this I say nay nay. You see, King Kong is not at all a monkey for one simple reason: he doesn't have a tail. Instead, Kong is in fact an ape, not a monkey. But the tail's not the only difference, it's mainly a difference in classification.
Primates, a taxon which includes all simians, including lemurs, monkeys, apes, and humans, is broken down into two suborders:
-Strepsirrhini: the prosimians= lemurs and their kin, excluding tarsiers
-Haplorrhini: tarsiers, monkeys, and apes
It's the latter of those groups that contains the issue we're focusing on. Haplorrhini is thus broken down into old and new world monkeys. The old world group contains superfamily Homioidae, which is the ape family. Apes are thus separated from monkeys in classification, and are distinguished by the absence of tails, among other anatomical factors.
In short, apes are not monkeys, there is a defined difference.
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