The Junzi imperialis, a newly termed extinct gibbon from China has been found in the tomb of Queen Xia the grandmother of the first Chinese emperor. The researchers gave the ape the nickname Junzi imperialis, pertaining to the skull’s royal roots as well as the gibbon’s common role of “scholarly gentleman” (the English translation of Junzi) in ancient Chinese mythology.
Mysterious Extinct Ape Skull found, Is It a Kind of Gibbon?
There’s very little known about primate extinctions—almost nothing,” says study co-author James Hansford, a postdoctoral research associate with the Zoological Society of London. So the study team assembled a database of skull and teeth dimensions for the four living genera of gibbons which allowed them to compare the new gibbon named junzi imperials to known species. “What we found from that is it’s extraordinarily different,” says Hansford. Today, all Chinese gibbons are critically endangered notes Cheyne. The creatures now are drastically reduced in numbers and at risk due to deforestation and poaching,
What Kind of Animal is a Gibbon?
The gibbon is a small sized ape, found in the dense jungles and tropical rainforests across south-east Asia. Gibbons belong to the lesser ape family.
What is the Difference Between Monkeys and Apes?
Within the suborder of anthropoids, primates are grouped into monkeys, apes and hominids. The easiest way to distinguish monkeys from the other anthropoids is to look for a tail. Most monkey species have tails, but apes do not have tails. Monkeys are much more like other mammals than apes and humans. Are humans apes? Humans are not apes but hominoids which are closely related to the great apes (chimpanzees, orang-utans, bonobos, gorillas and humans).
Ape Evolution-
The apes evolution took place from a wider group of primates. Gibbon Orangutan, gorillas, bonobo, chimpanzee are some of the ape species. Movies inspired by these primates have been made from time to time. Planet of the Apes, a 1968 American science fiction film directed by Franklin J. scaffner is one such movie.
