Wake Up People, Apes Are Not Monkeys!

I get really irritated when I hear people in the media failing to make a distinction between monkeys and apes. Just a few minutes ago I heard a radio story about the effort to get Cheeta (the chimp from the Tarzan movies, who, incredibly, is still alive at 76!) a star on the Hollywood walk of fame (it only seems fair, David Spade has a star). The reporter used the terms monkey and ape interchangeably. Can you imagine a news story about a squirrel where half the time the reporter referred to the squirrel as a porcupine? That is roughly as stupid as mixing up monkeys and apes.

Check out the forks in the tree, it would actually make more sense to use ape and human interchangeably.

Ape: Does not have tail

Monkey: Does have tail