The planet of the apes
For eight million years, apes are the successful primates and monkeys are the marginal ones.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 7 million years
- Known to
- ± 1 million years
- Era
- Miocene, Cenozoic
Between roughly 16 and 9 million years ago Eurasia and Africa together support dozens of hominoid genera across an enormous range of body sizes and habitats — the peak of ape diversity in Earth's history. Today there are four great ape genera and all of them are endangered. The reversal is one of the more striking asymmetries in mammal history, and understanding what monkeys did better in the late Miocene is a live research question.