Anthropopithecus

Article summary

. It is still labeled Anthropopithecus troglodytes, binomial name replaced in 1895 by Pan troglodytes. The terms Anthropopithecus (Blainville, 1839) and Pithecanthropus (Haeckel, 1868) are obsolete taxa describing either chimpanzees or archaic humans. Both are derived from Ancient Greek ἄνθρωπος (ánthrōpos), meaning "man", and πίθηκος (píthēkos), meaning "ape, monkey", translating to "man-ape" and "ape-man", respectively. Anthropopithecus was originally coined to describe the chimpanzee and is now a junior synonym of Pan. It had also been used to describe several other extant and extinct species, among others the fossil Java Man. Very quickly, the latter was re-assigned to Pithecanthropus, originally coined to refer to a theoretical "missing link". Pithecanthropus is now classed as Homo erectus, thus a junior synonym of Homo.

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