Hominidae

The hominids are members of the biological family Hominidae (the great apes). This family includes humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans.Groves C. 2005. Wilson D.E.; Reeder D.M. eds. Mammal species of the world. 3rd ed, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 181184. .   "Great ape" is a common name rather than a taxonomic label, and people use it in different ways. Sometimes people mean to include humans in the category of “great apes,” and sometimes they mean non-human apes. Homo sapiens is definitely a hominid, as judged by all modern reference works.

Hominids range in weight from 48 kg to 270 kg. Males are larger than females. Hominids are primates with no tails, strong bodies, and well-developed forearms. Their thumbs (and big toes, except in humans) oppose the fingers, and form a grip. All digits have flattened nails.

At present, the family Hominidae includes four genera and eight species. However, if fossil hominids were included, all of the Australopithecines and the genus Homo would be members of the Hominidae family. Today, nonhuman great apes live only in the rainforests of equatorial Africa, Sumatra and Borneo.

The first hominid fossils are from the Miocene period. Archaeologists found these in AsiaHill, Andrew & Steven Ward 1988. Origin of the Hominidae: the record of African large hominoid evolution between 14 My and 4 My. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 31 (59): 49–83. and Europe. Also in Asia, they found fossils of a huge version of the orangutan called Gigantopithecus, which is now extinct. Fossils also show that Neanderthals were in Europe and western Asia for at least half a million years before modern humans appeared.

Classification
Scholars do not agree on exactly how to classify the family Hominidae.

Past versions
In the past, the family Hominidae have been classified this way:
Family Hominidae: Great apes
 Subfamily Ponginae
 Genus Pongo  orangutans
 Subfamily Homininae
 Genus Gorilla – gorillas
 Genus Pan – chimpanzees
 Australopithecus† and other extinct relatives
 Genus Homo – humans

Modern version
A more recent classification shows humans and the Australopithecines as distinct from the rainforest apes. Two major reference works have supported this approach.Larsen, Clark Spencer (ed) 2010. A companion to biological anthropology. Blackwell. Chapter 3 (Bernard A. Wood) Systematics, taxonomy & phylogenetics, 5673. Stanford, Craig; Allen, John S. & Anton, Susan C. 2011. Biological anthropology. Pearson. 

Superfamily Hominoidea
Family Hylobatidae
Genus Hylobates
Family Hominidae
Subfamily Ponginae
Genus Pongo
Subfamily Gorillinae
Genus Gorilla
Subfamily Homininae
Tribe Panini
Genus Pan
Tribe Hominini
Subtribe Australopithecina/Hominina
Genus Ardipithecus
Genus Australopithecus
Genus Kenyanthropus
Genus Sahelanthropus
Genus Orrorin
Genus Paranthropus
Genus Homo

Related pages
 Human timeline
 Human evolution

References

Category:Hominids