Some authors include the great apes in the family Hominidae, which is the grouping for humans and their extinct ape-like ancestors. Humans are descended from extinct apes, and can accurately be referred to as bipedal apes.
The apes are a group within the infra-order Catarrhini that also includes the monkeys of Africa and Eurasia. Apes can be distinguished from monkeys by the number of cusps on their molars (apes have five - the "Y-5" molar pattern, monkeys have only four in a "bilophodont" pattern). Apes have more mobile shoulder joints and arms, ribcages that are flatter front-to-back, and a shorter, less mobile spine compared to monkeys. These are all anatomical adaptations to vertical hanging and swinging locomotion (brachiation) in the apes. No living apes have tails, whereas most monkeys do.
The original usage of "ape" in English may have referred to the baboon, an African monkey. A tailless monkey species, a macaque that survives on Gibraltar and the North African coast is also known as the Barbary Ape.
All these ideas point at wild animals, somewhat resembing humans, but covered in hair and often preferring to walk on all fours. Most kinds of apes climb trees. They are best described as omnivorous, their diet consisting of fruit, grass seeds, and in most cases small quantities of meat (either hunted or scavenged), along with anything else available and easily digested. They live in Africa and Asia.
Most ape species are rare or endangered. The chief threat to most ape species is loss of tropical rainforest habitat, though some populations are also imperiled due to hunting.
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