Reptiles

Lee Berman · 07 Jan 2011, 13:29 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2011 08:29:49 -0500
Subject: (urth) Reptiles
Message-ID: <SNT123-W595B640A22F8BB8D887E4CF0B0 at phx.gbl>

>On the other hand he seems to have conflated monkeys and apes in a couple spots in his work. 
>(a baboon is big, but definitely a monkey).

I retract this. I was thinking about how one of the monkeys associated with Father Inire's name,
Inuus sylvanus, is commonly called the Barbary Ape because, though clearly a monkey, has no tail.
Did a little checking and in the past (in less rigorous taxonomic times), baboons were also 
generally called "apes", probably due to their size and because they are more terrestrial than arboreal 
and their tails aren't prominent in their most frequent posture- sitting on the ground.

So, now I think Wolfe calling a monkey an "ape" may be a purposeful way of maintaining the archaic
sense of language in BotNS rather than an error. (I doubt anyone but me cares, but had to issue
the retraction anyway. I shouldn't have doubted Wolfe's science acumen).

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