EvC Forum: Evolutionary History of Apes

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Topic: Evolutionary History of Apes

New Cat's Eye

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Message 3 of 25 (530170)
10-12-2009 3:17 PM

Reply to: Message 1 by Perdition
10-12-2009 2:17 PM

Last night, I watched the Discovery Channel special on "Ardi."

How was it? I forgot to set the DVR... is it worth hunting down?

It brought up some interesting things I hadn't known until about a week or so ago, namely: "Knuckle-walking" in chimps appears to be an evolved trait from after we split,

Yup, that was the "neatest" part for me.

That and that chimps are probably just as diverged from the common ancestor as we are. Which simply follows but doesn't seem to "feel" right at first thought.

One of the first things I thought when I saw Ardi was: "Whoa, look at them hands!"

That got me thinking, what is the fossil record for Chimps and/or the other great apes? We seem to be trying to push our ancestor's back to a common one with chimps, but how far back do they have for chimps? Is it possible we've found our last common ancestor, but until we can link it in time with proto-hominid remains, we just don't know yet?

I don't have anything to offer, sorry, but I'm with you in thinking this would be interesting to look at.

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	Message 1 by Perdition, posted 10-12-2009 2:17 PM		Perdition has replied

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New Cat's Eye

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Message 7 of 25 (530208)
10-12-2009 5:19 PM

Reply to: Message 5 by RAZD
10-12-2009 4:54 PM

I find it interesting to think that we may already have found a common ancestor, but don't recognize it as such because it is so different (relatively) from chimps.

I was going to reply this to Perdition, but you already brought it up.

Is it possible that one of these early homos is already the common ancestor between us and chimps? Or do we know that isn't the case (like through genetics or something)?

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	Message 9 by Dr Jack, posted 10-12-2009 5:33 PM	New Cat's Eye has replied

New Cat's Eye

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Message 10 of 25 (530220)
10-12-2009 5:40 PM

Reply to: Message 9 by Dr Jack
10-12-2009 5:33 PM

Homo itself, no. No way. The earliest known homonids, well, possible but...

Holy shit. I was using "homo" as an abbreviation for homonid and not the genus Homo >.< What a stupid abbreviation!

1. The dates are wrong. The consensus dates for when humans and chimps split are about 1-3 million years before these fossils. However, the methods of dating are prone to error so it's possible - if unlikely.

Okay, yeah. I figured someone who knew would chime in before got around to looking into it myself. Thank you.

2. All known hominids have derived traits not found in chimps. That is, they have features they share with us and/or later hominids but not with chimps or earlier apes. It is, again, possible that the chimp line evolved these traits but later reverted to the primitive state but it's unlikely.

That makes sense. The common ancestor is probably farther back then.

Thanks again.

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