From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The
simians
(infraorder
Simiiformes
) are the "higher primates". Familiar to most people are the
Old World monkeys
and
apes
, including
humans
and the
New World monkeys
. Simians tend to be larger than the "lower primates" or
prosimians
.
The simians are sister to the
tarsiers
: together they make up the
haplorhines
. The radiation occurred about 60 million years ago during the
Cenozoic
era.
40 million years ago, simians from Afro-Arabia colonized South America (by what route is not known). This gave rise to the
New World monkeys
. The remaining simians (
catarrhines
) split 25 million years ago into Old World monkeys and apes.
