• Question: If we evolved from apes did we evolve from one type of ape or lots of different types?

    Asked by chelss to Ed, Katie, Sam, Steve, Vera on 19 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Ed Morrison

      Ed Morrison answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Humans shared a common ancestor with chimpanzees about 5 to 7 million years ago. We don’t know exactly what this ancestor looked like but it probably walked on four legs like a chimp and had a smaller brain than we do. So both humans and modern chimpanzees evolved from the same, single, common ancestor.

    • Photo: Sam Tazzyman

      Sam Tazzyman answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      The same, single species of ape that is the common ancestor of chimps, bonobos and humans is extinct now, though: it changed into us (and chimps and bonobos).

    • Photo: Vera Weisbecker

      Vera Weisbecker answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Ed and Sam are right. However, further along the tree it looks like the human lineage “split up” into several pre-human species that later re-combined. For example, some people argue that all humans today have a little bit of DNA from Neanderthals in us.

    • Photo: Steven Daly

      Steven Daly answered on 18 Jun 2011:

      We do share a single common ancestor with chimps, and in fact if you go back far enough into the past, we share a single common ancestor with all life. The very first life on the planet.

    • Photo: Katie Marriott

      Katie Marriott answered on 19 Jun 2011:

      Good answers from the others, not sure what I can add!

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