To be sure, we'd have to pose this rather anachronistic question to the Reys, both now deceased. Unfortunately, this detour into taxonomic history doesn't really tell us whether Curious George is a monkey or an ape. When the Reys wrote Rafi et les Neuf Singes in 1939, then, the French term singes still likely meant "monkey and/or ape," even to relatively educated people. The genus Simia is still in use, though, most notably for the Barbary macaque. It wasn't until 1929 that the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature recommended no longer using the taxon Simia because it is "paraphyletic" (meaning: a confusing, catch-all term). In the middle of the 18th century, then, there was no scientific distinction at the superfamily level between apes and monkeys as there is today. (Arguably, it still is today.) The original scientific classification system, created by Carl Linnaeus, includes four genera under the order Primates: Homo (humans), Simia (monkeys and apes), Lemur (lemurs and colugos) and Vespertilio (bats). (Image in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons)Īt the time Curious George was created, the term "monkey" was common in general use to describe any number of primates. 1750) showing the genera Homo and Simia under the order.
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