Anthropoid Apes

Anthropoid Apes, a collective name for the gorilla, the chimpanzee, the orang, and the gibbon (see these words), from their outward resemblance to the human form, their semi-erect mode of progression, and their close anatomical relationship to man. Of these four the gorilla most nearly approaches man in the structure of the feet and hands; the chimpanzee in the form of the skull, the orang has the most highly-developed brain, and the gibbon the most man-like chest. With regard to the connection between man and this group, Huxley has stated that the lowest apes are farther removed from the higher forms than these are from man. The external resemblance is especially striking when young human and anthropoid forms are compared; and it is an important fact that in every respect the young anthropoid stands nearer to the human child than the adult anthropoid does to the adult man. The evolutionary view as to the common origin of anthropoids and man cannot be better stated than by Tylor: - "No competent anatomist who has examined the bodily structure of these apes considers it possible that man can be descended from any of them, but according to the doctrine of descent they appear as the nearest existing offshoots from the same primitive stock whence man also came." But it must be borne in mind that palaeontology throws no light on the question of "primitive stock" or "common ancestor," for the oldest known fossil anthropoid seems to be closely related to existing species.