Question: how did we evolvle from monkys

Pip Millington answered on 7 Nov 2016:

Monkeys that we see on Earth today and humans share common ancestors and both involved from the monkeys which were around roughly 10 million years ago.

As with all evolution a few factors affect this and it is based on the fact that within a species there is a lot of variation in the DNA code.

Usually external influences such as changes in geography separate groups of the same species. Some of the normal DNA variation across the whole population will be lost when this happens and something called genetic drift will result in other variants becoming established or dying out just due to chance if those variants don’t cause a particular advantage or disadvantage.

Also within separate groups of the same species some changes in the DNA code are beneficial to some individuals over others. For example, perhaps there were two groups of monkeys of the same species but geography caused one group to have to search reach up high for food and one group had plentiful food at ground level. Perhaps then it would be an advantage for the first group of monkeys to be able to stand upright and they would eat more and be healthier and pass on their DNA to the next generation. In this example, this is how something like bipedalism (walking on two legs) could come about in humans over long periods of time. This is called natural selection.

This might not be exactly how things happened all that time ago but hopefully it gives you an idea of the processes involved!