King Kong’s little brothers

QUESTION

While I was watching David Attenborough’s Life Of Mammals, I wondered: how many species and sub-species of monkeys are there worldwide?

MONKEYS are several families within the primate order, defined by the opposability of the digits, a large brain relative to body size and a long developmental period, with an increased learning and socialisation period.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists 612 recognised species and subspecies of primate ( iucn.org).

Primates are a complex group containing two sub- orders: Strepsirhini and Haplorhini.

Strepsirhini include lemurs, lorises, bush babies and aye-aye and are considered to have more primitive characteristics than those of true monkeys and apes.

Haplorhini includes the infraorder Simiiformes (monkeys and apes) and Tarsiiformes (tarsiers).

Within Simiiformes, monkeys are distinguished from apes by their tails and include six families: Callitrichidae (marmosets and tamarins); Cebidae (capuchins and squirrel monkeys); Aotidae (owl monkeys); Pitheciidae (sakis and uakaris); Atelidae (howler, spider and woolly monkeys); Cercopithecidae (colobus and langurs) and Cercopithecines (baboons, guenons, macaques and mangabeys).

Monkeys range in size from the pygmy marmoset, which can be as small as 4½ in and weigh 3½ oz, to the male mandrill, almost 3 ft long and weighing up to 79 lb.

The ape families consist of Hylobatidae ( gibbons and siamangs) and Hominidae (great apes and humans).

Alan Baines, Oxford.

QUESTION

The Panama hat and the Hundred Years War are notable for being misnamed. What other events or items have the wrong name?

FURTHER to the earlier answer, Jerusalem artichokes come from America (Jerusalem might be a corruption of girasole, the Italian word for ‘sunflower’).

The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after dogs. Their Latin name was Insularia Canaria (Island of Dogs). Catgut musical strings are made from sheep gut.

Jessica French, Walsall, W. Mids.