Want to know YOUR family tree? Well, here it is!
Darwin's great insight, and the unifying principle of biology today, is that all species are related to one another like sisters, cousins, and distant kin in a vast family tree of life. The implications are breathtaking; if we could travel back far enough in time, we would find common ancestors between ourselves and every other living organism. Everything from porcupines, to flamingos to cacti. Our immediate evolutionary family is comprised of the hominoids, the group of primates that includes the "lesser apes" (siamangs and gibbons) as well as the "great apes" (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans). Among the great apes, our closest relatives are the chimpanzees and bonobos. The fossil record, along with studies of human and ape DNA, indicate that humans shared a common ancestor with chimpanzees and bonobos sometime around 6 million years ago (mya). We begin this discussion of our species' evolution in Africa, near the end of the geological time period known as the Miocene, just before our lineage diverged from that of chimpanzees and bonobos.
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Relationships and estimated divergence times of the living apes are shown. Hominins are all species, including side-branches and extinct species, on the human line (highlighted) after our Last Common Ancestor with chimpanzees & bonobos (marked “A”). Some fossil hominin species are shown in the right-hand column, with their approximate age ranges indicated; early hominins: gray, Australopithecus: blue, Homo: orange.