Types of Apes

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Types of Apes: There are two main types of apes: “lesser apes” and “great apes“. Lesser apes include mainly all gibbon species, whereas the Great apes include orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos.

Great apes and humans belong to the same primate group called hominoids despite differences in limb length and jaw shape; their bone structure similarities can be noticed. However, apes and humans are not directly related.

Humans belong to a separate division of the hominoid family called the hominids. This group includes modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) and our direct ancestors.

Recent genetics research indicates that the hominid and ape lineages may have diverged about 7 to 9 million years ago^[1].

Here are two main types of apes namely:

Lesser Apes
Gibbons (also called lesser apes) belong to the family Hylobatidae, and there are 20 discovered species. Gibbons live in sub-tropical and tropical rainforests of Bangladesh, India, China, and the Indonesian islands. All gibbons are tailless and smaller in size when compared to Great apes.
Great Apes
The Hominidae family members are great apes or hominids. This taxonomic primate contains four genera, namely Pongo (Orangutans), Gorilla (East and West Gorillas), Pan (Chimpanzees & Bonobos), and Homo (modern humans).
- Orangutans
  
  These great apes are native to Indonesia and Malaysia’s rainforests but are found only in Borneo and Sumatra islands. There are only 3 known species of orangutans under the genus Pongo.
- Gorillas
  
  Gorillas are plant-eating primates, mostly ground-dwelling great apes found in equatorial African tropical forests. The genus Gorilla comprises two species: the eastern and western gorilla. The DNA of gorillas is more similar to that of humans. So, gorillas are the closest relatives to humans after Chimpanzees and Bonobos.
- Chimpanzees
  
  The chimpanzee (also called chimp or common chimpanzee, or robust chimpanzee) is another great ape found in the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. Chimpanzees are the closest relatives to humans.
- Bonobos
  
  The bonobo (also called the pygmy chimpanzee) is an endangered great ape and another species in the genus Pan. Bonobos were initially thought to be a subspecies of chimpanzees due to their physical similarities, but they are now a separate species.

Gibbon Species

Orangutan Species

Gorilla Species

Eastern Gorilla

Western Gorilla

Chimpanzee/Bonobo Species

Common Chimpanzee

Bonobo

Suggested Reading: All Types of Monkeys

Types of Apes by Taxonomists

Here is the list of apes by taxonomists sorted by the year of classification:

Common Name	Year	Taxonomists	Profession
Bornean Orangutan	1760	Carl Linnaeus	Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician
Lar Gibbon	1771	Carl Linnaeus	Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician
Moloch Gibbon	1798	Jean-Baptiste Audebert	French artist and naturalist
Chimpanzee	1799	Johann Friedrich Blumenbach	German physician, naturalist, physiologist, and anthropologist
Agile Gibbon	1821	Georges-Fréédééric Cuvier	French zoologist and paleontologist
Siamang Gibbon	1821	Stamford Raffles	British statesman
Black-crested Gibbon	1826	Richard Harlan	American paleontologist, anatomist, and physician
Sumatran Orangutan	1827	Renéé Lesson	French surgeon, naturalist, ornithologist, and herpetologist
Western Hoolock Gibbon	1834	Richard Harlan	American paleontologist, anatomist, and physician
Northern White-cheeked Crested Gibbon	1840	William Ogilby	Irish-born zoologist
Borneo Gibbon	1841	William Charles Linnaeus Martin	English naturalist
Western Gorilla	1847	Thomas Staughton Savage	American Protestant clergyman, missionary, physician, and naturalist
East Bornean Gray Gibbon	1850	Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire	French zoologist
Pileated Gibbon	1861	John Edward Gray	British zoologist
Eastern Black-crested Gibbon	1884	Philippe Alexandre Jules Küünckel d’Herculais	French entomologist and zoologist
Hainan-crested Gibbon	1892	Oldfield Thomas	British zoologist
Eastern Gorilla	1903	Paul Matschie	German zoologist
Kloss’s Gibbon	1903	Gerrit Smith Miller Jr.	American zoologist and botanist
Buff-cheeked Gibbon	1909	Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas	British zoologist
Bornean White-bearded Gibbon	1911	Marcus Ward Lyon Jr.	American mammalogist, bacteriologist, and pathologist
Abbott’s Gray Gibbon	1929	C. Boden Kloss	English zoologist
Southern White-cheeked Crested Gibbon	1951	Jean Thééodore Delacour	French ornithologist and aviculturist
Eastern Hoolock Gibbon	1967	Colin Groves	British-Australian biologist and anthropologist
Northern Yellow-cheeked Crested Gibbon	2010	Van Ngoc Thinh, Alan R. Mootnick, Vu Ngoc Thanh, Tilo Nadler, Christian Roos	German Primatologists
Gaoligong Hoolock Gibbon	2017	Peng-fei Fan, Kai He, Xing Chen, Alejandra Ortiz, Bin Zhang, Chao Zhao, Yun-Qiao Li, Hai-bo Zhang, Clare Kimock, Wen-Zhi Wang, Colin P. Groves, Samuel T. Turvey, Christian Roos, Kristofer M. Helgen & Xue-Long Jiang.	Many Chinese Primatologists
Tapanuli Orangutan	2017	Nurcahyo, Meijaard, Nowak, Fredriksson, & Groves in Nater, Mattle-Greminger, Nurcahyo, Nowak, de Manuel, Desai, Groves, Pybus, Sonay, Roos, Lameira, Wich, Askew, Davila-Ross, Fredriksson, de Valles, Casals, Prado-Martinez, Goossens, Verschoor, Warren, Singleton, Marques, Pamungkas, Perwitasari-Farajallah, Rianti, Tuuga, Gut, Gut, Orozco-terWengel, van Schaik, Bertranpetit, Anisimova, Scally, Marques-Bonet, Meijaard & Krutzen	Many Primatologists