The Primates: The Primate Order Table

ALTERNATE PRIMATE ORDER TAXONOMY
(only major species groups are included in this table) ¹

Suborder	Infraorder	Superfamily	Family	Subfamily	Common Names	Distribution
Prosimii (prosimians)	Lemuriformes	Lemuroidea	Lemuridae (true lemurs)		ring-tailed, and ruffed lemurs	Madagascar and Comoro Islands (for some species)
			Lepilemuridae		sportive lemurs
			Cheirogaleidae (dwarf lemurs)		dwarf and mouse lemurs
			Indriidae		indris, avahis, and sifakas	Madagascar
			Daubentoniidae		aye-ayes	Madagascar
		Lorisoidea	Loridae		lorises, pottos, and angwantibos	lorises--India and Southeast Asia; others--Africa
		Lorisoidea	Galagonidae		galagos (or bush babies)	sub-Saharan Africa and Zanzibar
	Tarsiformes ²		Tarsiidae		tarsiers	Philippines, Borneo, Celebes Islands, and Sumatra
Anthropoidea (anthropoids)	Platyrrhini (New World monkeys)	Ceboidea	Callitricidae	Calitricinae	marmosets and tamarins	Panama and north and eastern South America
			Cebidae ³	Cebinae	squirrel and capuchin monkeys	forested areas of Central America and/or north and eastern South America
				Aotinae	night and titi monkeys
				Atelinae	howler and spider monkeys
				Pithecinae	uakaris and sakis
	Catarrhini (Old World monkeys, apes and humans)	Cercopithecoidea (Old World monkeys)	Cercopithecidae	Cercopithecinae	guenons, vervets, baboons, macaques, etc.	guenons and baboons--Africa; macaques--northwest Africa, Gibraltar, South and East Asia
		Cercopithecoidea (Old World monkeys)	Cercopithecidae	Colobinae	colobuses, langurs, and proboscis monkeys	colobuses--Central Africa; langurs--India and Southeast Asia; proboscis monkeys-- Borneo
		Hominoidea (apes and humans)	Hylobatidae		gibbons and siamangs	Southeast Asia
			Hominidae ⁴(hominids)	Ponginae	orangutans	Sumatra and Borneo
				Gorillinae	gorillas	Central and West Africa
				Homininae	chimpanzees and bonobos	Central and West Africa
				Homininae	humans	originally only tropical and subtropical regions of Africa

1	Some researchers prefer an alternate classification that divides the primates into 2 suborders: Strepsirhini (lemurs and lorises) and Haplorhini (tarsiers, monkeys, apes, and humans). The strepsirhines have moist noses and the haplorhines do not. The taxonomy of the Primate Order is likely to be modified over the next few years as a result of the discovery of new species and the use of DNA sequencing data. At present, there are differences of opinion as to the placement of some species. Several of these differences are referred to in footnotes 3-5 below.
2	Some taxonomists consider tarsiers to be a distinct suborder, the Tarsioidea.
3	Some taxonomists consider the spider and howler monkeys to be in a separate family, the Atelidae.
4	There is an on-going debate as to how close Humans are to the African apes. Some taxonomists consider them to be in a separate family, the Pongidae. This would leave humans in their own family, the Hominidae. In the taxonomic system shown above, humans are combined with the great apes but are separated from them at a lower classification category--the tribe. Humans are assigned to the tribe Hominini while chimpanzees and bonobos are relegated to the tribe Panini. This reflects a growing consensus among primatologists.