What is a hominid?

Question

What is a hominid?

Answer 1

Since we are expanding our knowledge on this subject every year, this word seems to vary a lot depending on who you are talking to.  I have read a very good article in Scientific American recently that stated the consensus now is that a hominid is everything that is our direct ancestor all the way back to the chimp human common ancestor.

Answer 2

hominids are part of the  family or great apes which includeshumans, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and others who are currently extint .

Answer 3

A hominid is any member of the biological family called "great apes", including humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans.

Answer 4

An outdated term for hominin, one of Homo Sapiens' ancestors.

Answer 5

Alien.

Answer 6

Humans and their direct ancestors.

Answer 7

Technically, homiNOIDS are the family that includes the Great Apes and humans, not hominids.

Hominid generally refers only to us and our bipedal ancestors.  An earlier poster was correct; many anthropologists are phasing out the term "hominid" in favor of "hominin."  However, at this point, hominid is more common in the literature.

Answer 8

gee.you got me on this one !

i had to look it up :-)

so this is what i found for your question :

The word "hominid" refers to members of the family of humans, Hominidae, which consists of all species on our side of the last common ancestor of humans and living apes. Hominids are included in the superfamily of all apes, the Hominoidea,

Hominid or hominin?

Some scientists use a broader definition of Hominidae which includes the great apes, and instead call the group I am discussing "hominins". For a good discussion of the hominid/hominin terminology issue, read this article by Lee Berger.

the members of which are called hominoids. Although the hominid fossil record is far from complete, and the evidence is often fragmentary, there is enough to give a good outline of the evolutionary history of humans.

The time of the split between humans and living apes used to be thought to have occurred 15 to 20 million years ago, or even up to 30 or 40 million years ago. Some apes occurring within that time period, such as Ramapithecus, used to be considered as hominids, and possible ancestors of humans. Later fossil finds indicated that Ramapithecus was more closely related to the orang-utan, and new biochemical evidence indicated that the last common ancestor of hominids and apes occurred between 5 and 10 million years ago, and probably in the lower end of that range (Lewin 1987). Ramapithecus therefore is no longer considered a hominid.

learned something new today ..:-)