 The exact timing and cause of the extinction are unclear, but it is likely related to the settlement of Hispaniola by the Europeans in 1492 after discovery by Christopher Columbus.At first, the Hispaniola monkey was thought to be a close relative of the capuchin monkeys, but later investigation showed that the similarities were due to convergent evolution.Horovitz and MacPhee developed the hypothesis, first proposed by MacPhee et al., that all the Antillean monkeys (the others being the two Cuban monkey species of genus "Paralouatta", the Jamaican monkey ("Xenothrix mcgregori", and the Haitian monkey, "Insulacebus toussaintiana") belonged to a monophyletic group linked most closely with the modern genus "Callicebus".