Kingdom = Animalia
Phylum = Chordata
Subphylum = Vertebrata
Class = Mammalia
Order = Primates
Suborder = Prosimii
Prosimians are sometimes called protomonkies, as they retain many of the traits associated with the earliest primates. They have slowly been dying out as Anthropoidea takes over. (On the other hand, the great apes have been dying out too).
They possess whiskers, tribosphenic molars, and a long snout. They have a postorbital bar, but their eye sockets are not yet completely encased in bone. They have flat nails on all digits but for the second digit of each foot, on which they have a toilet claw. They also have large mobile ears.
Most prosimians also have dental combs and specialized scent glands. Most do not have a fused mandible (it's joined by cartilage, not bone). They tend to be nocturnal, and thus many have never evolved the ability to see in color. They rely on scent more than do most primates. They tend to move by vertical clinging and leaping.
All but one of the prosimii have wet noses (called a rhinarium). The odd one out is the tarsier. Because of this, some people use the semiorders Strepsirhini (with rhinarium {literally, 'split nose'}) and Haplorhini (no rhinarium). The semiorder Strepsirhini is identical to the Prosimii except for the fact that it leaves out the tarsier.
Prosimii contains three infraorders:
The Lemuriformes
The
Lorisiformes
And the
Tarsiiformes