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How can we be descended from monkeys if there are monkeys around today?
By Paul Willis / Kylie Andrews
Monkeys and humans share a common ancestor (Source: iStockphoto)
If evolution is real why are there still monkeys? How can we be descended from monkeys if they are around today?
With all the 'monkeying around' that can go on in the playground or even in the office it seems we could easily be directly descended from monkeys, but our evolutionary relationship is actually much more distant.
"This is a question often encountered by evolutionary biologists," says Dr Paul Willis, palaeontologist and Director of RIAus.
"But the question itself reveals a couple of fundamental misunderstandings about evolution and how it operates", he says.
Firstly, humans did not evolve from monkeys. Instead, monkeys and humans share a common ancestor from which both evolved around 25 million years ago.
This evolutionary relationship is supported both by the fossil record and DNA analysis. A 2007 study showed that humans and rhesus monkeys share about 93% of their DNA. Based on the similarities and differences between the two types of DNA, scientists have estimated that humans and rhesus monkeys diverged from their common ancestor 25 million years ago.
Similarly, the fossil record has identified ancestors common to both humans and monkeys, such as an as yet unnamed primate fossil from Myanmar found in 2009 and dated as living around 37 million years ago.
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Our closer cousins
Humans are actually more closely related to chimpanzees and other apes, but DNA evidence again shows that we didn't evolve from them. Chimps and humans share between 98 to 99% of DNA suggesting that we shared a common ancestor around 6 million years ago.
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Evolution is not linear
"The idea of sharing a common ancestor leads to the second major misunderstanding inherent in the question," says Dr Willis, "that evolution is a linear process where one species evolves into another."
Evolution is really a branching process where one species can give rise to two or more species.
"The fallacy of linear evolution is most clearly illustrated by the analogy of asking; how can I share common grandparents with my cousins if my cousins and my grandparents are still alive?," says Dr Willis.
"The answer is of course that your grandparents had more than one child and they each went off and started their own families creating new branches of your own family tree."
The same thing happens in evolutionary families. A species can split into two or more descendant species and they can split again and again across the generations.
Dr Paul Willis is the Director of RiAus and formerly a presenter on ABC TV's Catalyst program.
Tags: science-and-technology, evolution, palaeontology
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Published 04 October 2011
FAQs
The briefest possible response would be to emphasize that evolution deals with common ancestors. It is not that humans descended from apes and that apes descended from monkeys; rather, humans and apes share a common ancestor, and it is more recent than the common ancestor they both share with monkeys.
Why are there still monkeys if we evolved from them? ›
The short answer is that "we didn't evolve from any of the any animals that are alive today,” says Zach Cofran, an anthropologist at Vassar College. That is to say, humans didn't evolve from the gorillas we see at the zoo or the chimpanzees we snap pictures of on a safari.
Why are apes not evolving now? ›
First of all, the creatures we call apes are our cousins, not our ancestors. Which would make it very hard for them to evolve into something like us.
What is wrong with the statement "If humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes"? ›
What is wrong with the statement, "If humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes"? How would you respond if someone asked you this? Humans did not evolve from modern apes, we share a common ancestor, known as hominins.
Why haven't humans evolved? ›
Because humans take so long to reproduce, it takes hundreds to thousands of years for changes in humans to become evident. We simply don't notice the evolution of humans from day to day because it is happening so slowly. But creatures that reproduce more quickly also evolve more quickly.
Will monkeys ever evolve into humans? ›
No, human beings did not evolve from monkeys. Humans and modern apes, including chimpanzees, evolved from a now-extinct common ancestor.
Have humans stopped evolving? ›
Has it stopped already? Genetic studies suggest that the answer is no – and that humans are still evolving.
What will humans evolve into? ›
We will likely live longer and become taller, as well as more lightly built. We'll probably be less aggressive and more agreeable, but have smaller brains. A bit like a golden retriever, we'll be friendly and jolly, but maybe not that interesting.
Will monkeys ever talk? ›
Monkeys and apes lack the neural control over their vocal tract muscles to properly configure them for speech, Fitch concludes. "If a human brain were in control, they could talk," he says, though it remains a bit of a mystery why other animals can produce at least rudimentary speech.
Can apes evolve into humans again? ›
Could apes ever evolve into some other humanlike creature? It is possible that in many millions of years present day apes could evolve into some other humanlike species. It is, however, very improbable. First of all, humans did not evolve from any of the species we know as apes today.
The briefest possible response would be to emphasize that evolution deals with common ancestors. It is not that humans descended from apes and that apes descended from monkeys; rather, humans and apes share a common ancestor, and it is more recent than the common ancestor they both share with monkeys.
When did humans stop being monkeys? ›
Did we evolve from monkeys? 5 to 8 million years ago. Shortly thereafter, the species diverged into two separate lineages. One of these lineages ultimately evolved into gorillas and chimps, and the other evolved into early human ancestors called hominids.
Why didn't other animals evolve like humans? ›
Humans have evolved differently to other animals. We have much bigger brains relative to body size and in absolute size than other mammals, and have a level of intelligence that other animals don't.
What is the closest relative to humans? ›
Two African apes are the closest living relatives of humans: the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and the bonobo (Pan paniscus).
