this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2024
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Science Memes

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Subsets are a thing in biology as well. (lemm.ee)
submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Can somebody explain for the non-english natives? I didn't know there's a difference between apes and monkeys.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

so, frequently people will conflate monkeys and apes, and use the terms interchangably (that's the left end of the graph), people with a bit more knowledge may be aware of the common definition that monkeys have tails while apes do not (that's the middle part), while those with more knowledge of biological taxonomy argue that, since new world monkeys and old world monkeys share a more distant common ancestor than old world monkeys and apes, if we want to define a term 'monkey' that encompasses both new and old world monkeys, it would have to also include all apes (including humans). so, according to the right side of the graph people, chimpanzees are apes are monkeys (though lots of monkeys are not apes, it's a squares and rectangles kinda thing).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Du kennst diese Gruppen vermutlich als Affen und Menschen-Affen.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The easiest way to tell the difference is that monkeys have tails and apes don't. Chimps are definitely apes and I'm not sure what OP is getting at.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

What I'm getting at is taxonomy. A valid taxon has to include all descendents of the crown group. That means that for monkeys to constitute a valid taxon, apes must be included. Same reason why birds are technically dinosaurs.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

A monophyletic clade must include all descendants. A taxonomic group itself can hold anything.

Viruses can also integrate DNA into cells and it sticks there forever sometimes, thus bypassing the tree entirely (making it a network, i.e. no longer acyclic thus no longer a tree).

There is a lot of weirdness in the world, stranger than people have dreamed.:-P

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Fair enough. I just belong to the people who require a valid taxon to be monophyletic. (Btw., "clade" already implies monophyleti...city? Monophyleticness?)

Also, shut up about viruses, they make a mess of everything and are beautifully chaotic and I hate them and I love them. xD

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I will never shut up about viruses - they are aliens on earth, or like something I dunno but they are so fucking cool!

viruses

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Also shouldn't it be "monkies"

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I am not a biologist, but the way I was taught was that monkeys have tails and apes do not.

As far as the spelling, "monkeys" is correct.

You may be thinking that you want the plural of monkey, but because it ends in y the ending should become -ies. For example: berry -> berries

However, that rule is a little more complicated, and the ending of monkey is -ey. Because there is a vowel before the y the ending you don't have to change the -y to -ie and instead simply add -s

English is stupid.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

English is stupid

As a native English speaker I have to agree

Though going through the vocabulary thoroughly can lead to tough and interesting things

Like nouns as verbs, that shit's fire

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This feels relevant:

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Super relevant, thank you for sharing

I freaking love Calvin and Hobbes