This   level-4 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Primates High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Primates, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Primates on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PrimatesWikipedia:WikiProject PrimatesTemplate:WikiProject PrimatesPrimate articles High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Is anyone aware of the relationship between continental drift and primate evolution?

<sarcasm>No, no one is aware of it.</sarcasm> Do you have some text you want to add to the article, and do you have a citation to support it? - UtherSRG (talk) 18:19, 19 April 2006 (UTC) reply

Someone should add a section about how the new world monkeys managed to get there. Ashwinr 20:02, 7 July 2006 (UTC) reply

I am looking at the continental drift http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gondwana It is only about ~1800 miles/ 2800km from Brasil to West Africa now - the 4500km does not make sense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_E+6_m <-- wikipedia has it at 2800km for narrowest point 4800km is the widest width from US to N. Africa —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.142.130.28 ( talk) 04:39, 6 September 2007 (UTC) reply

My anthropology TA - this is why I'm here - says it's thought that a chunk broke off and floated across the ocean. Still may sound improbable, but as Carl Sagan pointed out, what seems impossible in a hundred years may be inevitable in a hundred million (or ten million or WHATEVER) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.146.93.33 ( talk) 22:21, 5 May 2008 (UTC) reply

I am doing some research on the very subject (how the heck there are monkeys in S. America and Africa). So far it looks unexplained, if S. America and Africa were apart before the existence of simians. I find it highly improbable that a chunk of Africa up and drifted over to S. America, no matter what you T.A. said. And even less believable that a 'raft of vegetation' from Africa floated over on ocean currents with monkeys on it. I think it discredits the page to have the 'raft theory' on there unsupported. So I think the most probable theory is that a main monkey ancestor existed at the time the continents separated, and evolved into slightly different species on each continent. I will continue this research. Hopefully someone out there has some supporting documentation that can shed some light on the issue. QatBurglar ( talk) 06:52, 21 May 2008 (UTC) reply

The raft theory is supported by the existing evidence. The evidence includes the facts that 1. Africa and South America were much closer at the time the first monkeys appeared in South America and 2. the earliest monkeys in South America appeaered along the Atlantic coast. There is no evidence of monkeys existing in South America at the time the the two contienents were connected; in fact, no monkeys existed back that far in history. The New and Old World groups split about 40 million years ago. Africa and south America split about 140-150 million years ago. There is no way that monkeys existed on Pangaea. - UtherSRG (talk) 10:34, 21 May 2008 (UTC) reply

Obviously the first primates didn't appear until 60 mya. But how far from Africa did S. America travel in the ~100 million years? The next step is to find out the positions of the African and S. American continents around 60-40 mya and the distance between them. If the distance is small enough, maybe the 'raft theory' is conceivable. Large clumps of trees have been known to break off from the Amazon and travel great distances on ocean currents. Also, these prehistoric trees were probably inconceivably large, probably capable of sustaining their own ecosystem for a while. Does anyone have any supporting data on either the distance between the continents or of the possibility of monkeys traveling from Africa on floating trees? - QatBurglar ( talk) 15:20, 25 May 2008 (UTC) reply

I found out that South America, when it separated from Africa, moved sort of in a swinging motion, with the bottom of the continent swinging away about a pivot point that was around sub-Saharan Africa. This was the area where the first simians appeared, and was the last to float away from the African continent. The two landmasses were much closer together at this time than I had originally thought. QatBurglar ( talk) 03:33, 16 June 2008 (UTC) reply

I have begun reading the book "Evolution of the New World Monkey and Continental Drift" which offers some of the major theories on the evolutionary controversy. My question is whether or not this should be contained under a separate article with only a summary under the 'Origins' section of this one. QatBurglar ( talk) 03:33, 16 June 2008 (UTC) reply

Depends how much information you want to provide about it. If you write enough for a full article on the issue, then by all means give it its own article. My question is, how many monkeys would have travelled by raft to South America? Is the hypothesis that a couple of dozen monkeys travelled on one raft, or is the idea that there were probably several rafts? Or is it believed that all the New World Monkeys emerged from an even smaller founding group, of say less than a dozen individuals? -- Mathew5000 ( talk) 09:07, 3 July 2008 (UTC) reply

Also, are platyrrhini the only nonhuman primates in South America? I assume that but the article doesn't make it explicit. -- Mathew5000 ( talk) 09:10, 3 July 2008 (UTC) reply

A rafting event also occurred on the other side of Africa, taking early prosimians from Africa (or possibly India) to Madagascar. The concept of a "rafting event" may even be relevant to other species outside of the order Primates. For that reason, I'm considering starting a new article, even if it has to start as "stub status" until we can track down enough sources to flesh it out. - Visionholder ( talk) 20:15, 23 September 2008 (UTC) reply

Go for it. - UtherSRG (talk) 20:57, 23 September 2008 (UTC) reply

I'll create it now. However, if someone has better sources that discuss the details of these events (or formally documents when these floating mats of vegetagion have been seen), please add it. Unfortunately, all of my sources only mention the theories briefly with no citations or references. I'm sure there's something out there. - Visionholder ( talk) 21:32, 23 September 2008 (UTC) reply

Done. Please clean up, rename, or whatever is needed. Anyone who is able to expand it is encouraged to do so, especially for other types of animals. - Visionholder ( talk) 22:23, 23 September 2008 (UTC) reply

Would it be right to say that the Platyrrhini (of course not the New World monkeys, but their common African ancestor) ist also the forefather of the Old World monkeys and thus the apes and the humans? It would be a logical assumption because doubtlessly they are the more animallike and therefore primitive monkeys.-- 80.141.186.5 ( talk) 16:08, 10 August 2009 (UTC) reply

It all depends on how far you go back. But the most recent common ancestor of all of Platyrrhini would certainly not be ancestral to all of the Old World monkeys and the apes. - UtherSRG (talk) 07:37, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply

The first sentence of the article says there are five families of New World monkeys, but Atelidae refers to "the four families of New World monkeys". Which is it? 68.83.240.41 ( talk) 01:00, 2 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Five families. Things were in flux last year. - UtherSRG (talk) 07:34, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply

This needs revisiting. The five families are not supported by either of the two sources for the taxonomic listing. Groves (in MSW3) lists four, with Callitrichinae included in Cebidae. This is followed by Ryland & Mittermeier (2009). The molecular analyses seem to support Aotidae/Aotinae as sister to Callitrichidae/Callitrichinae. So either three or five families are compatible with the data, but recent taxonomies seem to favour three with Cebidae including Aotinae and Callitrichinae (e.g. Feldhamer's Mammalogy and the ASM Mammalian Diversity Database).    Jts1882 |  talk  16:17, 9 February 2020 (UTC) reply

Oops. Strike that. I should have checked the column headers in the table in Ryland & Mittermeier (2009) more closely.    Jts1882 |  talk  15:44, 10 February 2020 (UTC) reply

This surprised me when I saw this. It was my understanding from reading your article that only the family Atellidae had prehensile tails. But I found at least three photos of squirrel monkeys suspended in part by their tails. Here is one photo. http://www.mrfs.net/trips/2006/Ecuador/Yasuni_Wildlife/squirrel_monkey3.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.161.220.192 ( talk) 23:50, 11 March 2012 (UTC) reply

That is certainly not a squirrel monkey! Looks like a spider monkey, or perhaps a capuchin. Hrm, in Ecuador.... Nope, the only squirrel monkey in Equador is the common squirrel monkey, and it has coloring and body shape that is distinctly different that this image. - UtherSRG (talk) 07:34, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Here's good (recent) source for discussing the arrival and diversification of New World monkeys:

• Poux, C.L.; Chevret, P.; Huchon, D.E.; De Jong, W.W.; Douzery, E.J.P. (2006). "Arrival and Diversification of Caviomorph Rodents and Platyrrhine Primates in South America" (PDF). Systematic Biology. 55 (2): 228–244. doi: 10.1080/10635150500481390. PMID  16551580.

–  Maky ^{«  talk »} 17:26, 6 June 2012 (UTC) reply

Can North America be included here, too? Perhaps, South and Central America and the tropical portions of Mexico? Fotoguzzi ( talk) 03:02, 16 July 2013 (UTC) reply

Added Mexico. Fotoguzzi ( talk) 23:25, 23 July 2013 (UTC) reply

The photo illustrating the difference between Old World and New World monkey faces - is it really correct that Old World monkey faces are represented by a non-monkey? Scatterkeir ( talk) 21:01, 2 January 2018 (UTC) reply

A: ...No. I've added a section below that makes your point clear. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.161.79.137 ( talk) 20:12, 13 January 2018 (UTC) reply

The primate on the left appears to be a chimpanzee, which is an ape. Apes are not monkeys in any sense or meaning. The images should be updated to replace the chimpanzee with a baboon, which really IS an Old World monkey. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.161.79.137 ( talk) 20:08, 13 January 2018 (UTC) reply

Bumping this! 195.99.56.90 ( talk) 12:15, 30 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on New World monkey. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080515074123/http://www.chimpanzoo.org/ceboidea.html to http://www.chimpanzoo.org/ceboidea.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Y An editor has reviewed this edit and fixed any errors that were found.

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 10:57, 17 February 2018 (UTC) reply

New World monkey is an actual monkey while the Old World "MONKEY" is a Chimpanzee. This needs a major correction. I highly suggest using a baboon or a mandrill. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.99.129.242 ( talk) 04:35, 18 June 2018 (UTC) reply

Why is this article titled "New World monkey" and not "Platyrrhini", to be analogous with the " Catarrhini" article about Old World monkeys? Does this comply with WP:Article titles? ♆ CUSH ♆ 14:29, 12 May 2023 (UTC) reply

Catarrhini includes old world monkeys and apes. A subdivision Cercopithecoidea deals with Old World Monkeys and is titled as such. While using taxon names for article titles would be more consistent, this is very much in line with the Wikipedia naming convention. —   Jts1882 |  talk  17:05, 12 May 2023 (UTC) reply

Since List of New World monkeys is now List of ceboids, I figured to update the taxobox here. Need the authority for Ceboidea, and is the type species for the superfamily the same as the parvorder or different? - UtherSRG (talk) 10:50, 26 August 2023 (UTC) reply

@ PresN and SilverTiger12: However, I'm not finding Ceboidea is actually in use from any of the regular sources of taxonomy... so perhaps we shouldn't use it and should move the list to List of platyrrhines instead... - UtherSRG (talk) 11:02, 26 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Yes, I'd use Platyrrhini or platyrrhines (e.g. see ASM-MDD). I assume Ceboidea is not used as it is the only superfamily in Platyrrhini (and thus redundant). —   Jts1882 |  talk  12:03, 26 August 2023 (UTC) reply

It seems Ceboidea is "Bonaparte, 1831", from some quick googling, but agree that it seems that it's generally unused as an interstitial grouping as the only superfamily. In terms of naming, as per the FLC for cercopithecoids the lists are going to be named after the highest level clade that includes only those extant species, which would be Platyrrhini for this group, so, "List of platyrrhines". I note that this article actually only discusses Ceboidea in the lead/infobox; the cladogram and article body text never mention it. -- Pres N 19:19, 26 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Seems a good idea per common name and consistency with this page and with the page Old World monkeys (although the list of Old World monkeys is named List of cercopithecoids). I don't recall hearing or reading the words 'playtyrrhines' or 'cercopithecoids' before today, and those being the list name for New World monkeys and Old World monkeys has surprised me. Randy Kryn ( talk) 23:54, 27 August 2023 (UTC) reply

The Lists are all being moved to align to the highest level taxon they contain. See the discussion immediately above. - UtherSRG (talk) 10:54, 28 August 2023 (UTC) reply

"List of platyrrhines"? Yeah, that's not confusing. Why would you move anything into something like that before a full RM supports it. Randy Kryn ( talk) 11:53, 28 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Because of:

The standard, built over the last 3 years, is that the mammal "List of X" lists are named after the scientific name, not the common name, because many groupings do not have a common name- even within the primates, the lorisoids for example contain 5 different "common name" groupings. So, the list for this grouping should be at the same, with "List of New World monkeys" redirecting to it. The discussion above decided that it would be platyrrhines (for Platyrrhini), not ceboids (for Ceboidea). Both of those terms are in bold in the second sentence of this article. -- Pres N 18:16, 28 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Wikipedia naming conventions support common names as article titles. By common names they mean the name most commonly used, not a vernacular version of a taxon name. While a case could be made for lists of taxon names, I can see no justification for the the use of the vernacular version of the taxon name when it is not a common name in the Wikipedia sense. The Wikipedia guidance suggests List of New World monkeys as the appropriate title. A case can be made for List of Platyrrhini but I can't see one for List of platyrrhines. —   Jts1882 |  talk  19:23, 28 August 2023 (UTC) reply

WP:BOLD. Not everything requires a discussion first. And for the record, I oppose moving the list back to Old World monkeys and prefer to leave it at List of platyrrhines as the most precise title. SilverTiger12 ( talk) 01:34, 29 August 2023 (UTC) reply