Anthropoid came from the
Greek for "of human likeness". In biology it is used interchangeably with
simian to refer to a primate that is not a
lemurid,
lorisid, or
tarsier. In some cultural representations, namely Edgar Rice Burroughs's
Tarzan of the Apes, an "anthropoid" refers to a supposed missing link between humans and apes. Whether understood to be a simian or the missing link, the term "anthropoid" is linked to a history of racialism especially in late nineteenth and early twentieth century representations where the "anthropoid ape" represents "metonymically the individual chimpanzee, all threatened species, the third world, peoples of color, Africa, the ecologically endangered earth.
Distinguish from:
Operation Anthropoid was the codename for the
assassination of SS-Obergruppenführer and Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia
Reinhard Heydrich during
World War II in
Prague.
References