This enthralment with a handful of terrestrial, Old World species as models for human evolution resulted in what the anthropologist Karen Strier has dubbed ‘the myth of the “typical” primate’. These idiosyncratic macho monkey societies became the perceived blueprint for all primates. Subsequent phylogenetic research has, however, revealed that Old World monkeys make for poor primate prototypes. Their behaviour is actually highly derived, tailored to meet specific environmental challenges and far from representative.
