How was the supposed common ancestor of Chimpanzee and man look like?
- Thread starter C.E.O
- Start date
Like so:
http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/ardipithecus-kadabba
http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/sahelanthropus-tchadensis
http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/orrorin-tugenensis
He looks closer to an ape.
He was more like an ape.
"Degenerate"? Your question doesn't make any sense. There is only evolution and in one branch environmental pressures resulted in adaptations that today we call a "Chumpanzee".
look up Nakalipithecus
[link]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakalipithecus[/link]
all that they have ever found of it was a jawbone and 11 teeth, the shape of the tooth tell us he ate hard things like nuts and seeds and he should have resembled the Ouranopithecus macedoniensis of wich more then half a skull exist... it looks ape like
[link]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakalipithecus[/link]
all that they have ever found of it was a jawbone and 11 teeth, the shape of the tooth tell us he ate hard things like nuts and seeds and he should have resembled the Ouranopithecus macedoniensis of wich more then half a skull exist... it looks ape like
This time line might help you out.
The reason that Crunchy Cat said that your question about 'degenerate' did not make any sense is because you have mistakenly put humans as the pinnacle of evolution, which is not correct. We are no more evolved than an armadillo. That is to say that if a million years from now human beings have smaller brains, are sitting in trees and grunting; that will not mean that we have degenerated, it will simply mean we have evolved. Evolution only has one direction - forward.
It is rather meaningless to say human beings are the most complicated of the Hominini or even the most complicated organism. What do you mean by the most complicated anyway? There are plenty of organisms that have more DNA than us. We have the second largest average brain size of the genus Homo, so what exactly do you mean by complicated?
Aside from what origin asked, why does complexity matter?
(Adding to what origin and Crunchy said) it depends on what you mean by "we" and "complicated". If the only difference between the ancestral Pan to Homo was a chromosomal aberration, then that "complication" would seem negligible, regardless of the subsequent evolutionary results.
No, they are not. What is the source of the claim?
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Nope, that is not true. That is a view point where you are assuming we are the most important life form, this is known as egocentric.
Nope, no more than a cheetah is.
Musk ox and bison have changed more appreaciable than man has in the last 50,000 years - I don't think they are the 'last branch'. There is no pinacle of evolution. There are only species that are adapted to the current environment.
I suppose you can say that we are the current step in the branch Homo, if that makes you feel better.
Nope, that is not true. That is a view point where you are assuming we are the most important life form, this is known as egocentric.
Nope, no more than a cheetah is.
Musk ox and bison have changed more appreaciable than man has in the last 50,000 years - I don't think they are the 'last branch'. There is no pinacle of evolution. There are only species that are adapted to the current environment.
I suppose you can say that we are the current step in the branch Homo, if that makes you feel better.
As origin stated, that is simply false.
Edit: I misinterpreted part of your statement. Humans "are" animals.
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I am probably repeating what origin said, but no that is incorrect. There is no "last anything" in the evolution process. It just keeps going.
The question doesn't really make any sense. What is the "tree of life" and what does being "on top of it" mean?
We are not the most recent life form on earth to speciate (assuming that is what you are talking about).
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Ardipithecus is the earliest and most recently discovered transitional species. Enough material was discovered to create a very complete and accurate likeness. She was fully bipedal, yet she still had one prehensile toe on each foot. This made her much more adept at climbing than we are, so she was still able to quickly take refuge in the trees when under attack. Fully bipedal walking was a tremendous survival advantage, because the males could search for food and come back carrying huge armloads of it while the females and children stayed safe in the trees. Gorillas and chimpanzees can't do that over any major distance. The Smithsonian has a full-scale model of Ardi in its Hall Of Human Origins (as well as a Neanderthal and other figures).
That sentence makes no sense. Humans are a species of ape, specifically of the Great Apes (the 2 species of chimpanzee, the 2 species of gorilla, the orangutan, and the human) as opposed to the Lesser Apes (the gibbons). Anyone who doubts that humans are apes has never watched the Olympics gymnastics competition.
If you're asking whether she was midway in shape between a human and a chimpanzee, follow my link above to the picture in Wikipedia.
That sentence doesn't make any sense either, since all apes, including humans, are animals. Only six kingdoms of living things have been identified so far: Bacteria, Archaea, Algae, Fungi, Plants and Animals. It's clear that we aren't any of the first five, and it's even clearer that we are obviously animals.
Anthropocentric is an even better word to describe the various artifacts of human hubris.
So has the polar bear. Its teeth have only had their current form for about 10,000 years.
Most of the changes in our species in the past 50K years have been in our psychological programming. We have evolved from the instinct of a pack-social species (depending on and caring for a small group of others whom we have known since birth, for the good of the pack) to an instinct more typical of a herd-social species (living in harmony and cooperation with anonymous strangers whom we've never even met for the good of the herd).
It's likely that the bald eagle of North America and the white-tailed eagle of Eurasia speciated from each other as recently as 10KYA.
I don't think that was the common ancestor of chimps and man. The ancestor would not have walked upright.
That's pretty damn recent.
I saw on TV a few nights ago an interesting story about earthworms in a particular location in England. The soil in that particular location was badly contaminated with arsenic between 100 and 200 years ago (I think the exact number was around 130 years), to an extent that it will today kill the vast majority of ordinary earthworms put in it. Yet the entire area is full of earthworms. But these earthworms are notably different to all other known species of earthworm; they are genetically distinct and even look different.
This is an example of speciation that happened as recently as 200 years ago.
This is an example of speciation that happened as recently as 200 years ago.