ISPN

[tmkeesey]

I posted some somewhat-silly-but-kind-of-serious thoughts about hominoid nomenclature here: Ape Taxonomy Is Confusing.

Basically, the traditional rank-based Homo typified names (see subject) are 1) confusingly similar, 2) used in all kinds of different ways, and 3) hard to phylogenetically define in such a way that they are consistent with their usage under rank-based codes*. So I forward the idea of not converting them at all and just creating new, descriptive names for the major hominoid clades. Something possibly like this:

Pithecoi := Clade(Hylobates lar + Homo sapiens)

Megapithecoi := Clade(Gorilla gorilla + Homo sapiens + Pan troglodytes + Pongo pygmaeus)

Afropithecoi := Clade(Gorilla gorilla + Homo sapiens + Pan troglodytes)

[I couldn't think of a good name for this one] := Clade(Homo sapiens + Pan troglodytes)

Hylobatidae has never been that problematic, and could continue to be used for Clade(Hylobates lar + Hoolock hoolock + Symphalangus syndactylus + Nomascus concolor). Of course, for symmetry, that crown clade could also be named Micropithecoi.

Well, I'm probably nuts, but I thought I'd throw it out there anyway.

* Actually, I didn't make that point there, but I should have.
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T. Michael Keesey
Director of Technology, Exopolis, Inc.

[David Marjanović]

This is actually a great idea.

Publish it.

[David Marjanović]

Incidentally... does everyone except me have a blog now? I'm starting to feel guilty.

[tmkeesey]

Well, I'd have to do an extensive literature review to do it right, and by the time I got it published I wonder if Phylonyms would already be published with definitions for the Homo-typified names.

Besides, primatology isn't my primary focus area (although I've been focusing more on it since launching March of Man). Well, I'll think about it.

Anyone know of a good paleoanthropology forum? I subscribed here, but it's not very busy. (About as busy as this forum, actually....)
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T. Michael Keesey
Director of Technology, Exopolis, Inc.

[tmkeesey]

Incidentally, I note a problem with a couple of the names I came up with: Afropithecus and Micropithecus are actual genera, and do not belong to "Afropithecoi" or "Micropithecoi".

"Micropithecoi" is easily dropped, since, as I noted, Hylobatidae is already pretty stable. "Afropithecoi" could be "Africopithecoi" instead, perhaps.

(And should these end in "-i" instead of "-oi"?)
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T. Michael Keesey
Director of Technology, Exopolis, Inc.

[leowsham]

This is very interesting and should worth publication.
However, the major debate is, as your title noted, within Homonidae (which was originally not intended to include Pan, but now appears so by up-ranking it in the traditional code). I thought Bernard Wood published some reviews on this about a decade ago. See also Palaeobiology II for an executive summary as well.
There is no major disagreement, though, on TMK's phylogeny:
(((Homo + Pan) Gorilla) Pongo)...
Perhaps just nobody had published explicit names for the respective nodes.
It may be more pragmatic to retain (+/- redefine) Hominidae to bridge the two sets of names, I suppose. The splitter-lumper debate on fossil human has rendered it rather impossible to anchor clade names within Hominidae.
P.S. Hi I'm back...
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vivat scientia !!!