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Asked by cookiedoughmonster to Ed, Katie, Sam, Steve, Vera on 19 Jun 2011.
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Sam Tazzyman answered on 17 Jun 2011:
This is a good question. In fact humans, chimps, and bonobos all evolved from the same type of ape, and this type of ape is no longer around. So there are still apes around, but not the ones from which humans evolved.
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Ed Morrison answered on 17 Jun 2011:
For the same reason that my brother and I came from the same parents, and both of us are still around.
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Steven Daly answered on 18 Jun 2011:
It is a good question, because this is something that is easily misunderstood about evolution. When we say we evolved frolm apes, we do not mean directly from chimps or gorillas, what we mean is that we evolved from some earlier type of ape, which also evolved into the other great apes.
In fact, the further back into the past you go, the more animals we have a common ancestor with. So we have a common ancestor with all mammal species, because all mammal species can trace a link back to the first mammal. If you go back far enough you find what is termed LUCA, which stands for Last Universal Common Ancestor. This is I think some kind of bacteria to which everything on the planet evolved from. That is pretty cool I think.
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Vera Weisbecker answered on 18 Jun 2011:
Like the others said! it’s like a family tree where more distant branches of the family are still around although the “founding couple” may be dead for hundreds of years.
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