Talk:Hominina

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[edit] New taxonomy of extinct and living humans

Cela-Conde and Ayala (2003) have devised a new taxonomy of the human family. Their paper recognizes the validity of five genera of hominids: Ardipithecus, Australopithecus, Homo, Praeanthropus, and Sahelanthropus. They conclude that Kenyanthropus is a species of Homo, the earliest known to science, that Orrorin is an early species of Praeanthropus, and that Paranthropus is really not distinguishable from Australopithecus.

If Hominidae is to be monophyletic, some taxonomists restrict Pongidae to orangutans and their relatives, define Gorillidae to include only gorillas and their ancestors, and place chimpanzees in their own family, Panidae. In order for this four-family scheme to be accepted, scientists need to establish a definition like this:

unnamed clade (Pongidae+(Gorillidae+(Panidae+Hominidae)

By this definition, orangutans are related to a chimp/gorilla/human clade, gorillas are related to a chimp/human clade, and chimps are close to humans.

C. J. Cela-Conde and F. J. Ayala. 2003. Genera of the human lineage. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 100(13):7684-7689. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.194.116.63 (talk) 01:26, 7 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Isn't that special?

The article says, "specialized in an herbivorous diet that required a stronger jaw and molars". I've seen a piece in the New York Times (21 Nov 2006?) suggesting no specialization existed. Trekphiler 05:40, 19 February 2007 (UTC)