Hominid

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For the book by Robert J. Sawyer, see The Neanderthal Parallax.

A hominid is any member of the biological family Hominidae (the "great apes"), including the extinct and extant humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. (This classification has been revised several times in the last few decades. See the Hominidae and history of hominoid taxonomy articles.)

The primatological term is easily confused with a number of very similar words:

• A hominoid is a member of the superfamily Hominoidea: extant members are the lesser apes (gibbons) and great apes.
• A hominid is a member of the family Hominidae: all of the great apes.
• A hominine is a member of the subfamily Homininae: gorillas, chimpanzees, humans.
• A hominin is a member of the tribe Hominini: chimpanzees and humans.
• A hominan is a member of the sub-tribe Hominina: humans and their extinct relatives.
• A humanoid is a vaguely human-shaped entity.

Certain morphological characteristics are still used conventionally (though incorrectly) to support the idea that hominid should only denote humans and human ancestors, namely bipedalism and large brains. These points of departure between human beings and the other great apes are important, but taxonomically do not divide us into separate families. Genetics, rather than morphology, is the critical test of relatedness and in this respect humans and the other great apes ought to be of the same family. Indeed, the terms hominid and "great ape" are now effectively coterminous. However, anthropologists use the term to mean humans and their direct and near-direct ancestors, despite the changes in the understanding of hominoid taxonomy that have happened in the past several decades.