Is the ancestors of the human kind are the apes?

Answer 1

Humans share a common ancestor to Chimps and Bonobos. This ancestor is one that we would likely label an ape. Therefore for most people's purposes, yes, we evolved from apes, but not from modern apes.

We would most likely classify the miocene ape that is the common ancestor of humans and modern apes as an ape. It was a primate, as we are. The catarrhini include the old world monkeys, gibbons, great apes, and humans. These and the platyrrhini (new world monkeys) are included in the same clade. Our next closest relatives would be the tarsiers. We are yet more distantly related to lemurs, galagos, lorises, and other primates, all of which are, of course, eutherians (placental mammals).

Two key pieces of genetic evidence for our common ancestry with the old world primates are the L-gulonolactone oxidase gene which expresses a protein responsible for ascorbic acid synthesis, and the number of chromosomes. First, the GULO gene is broken in us the same way it is broken in almost all other old world primates. That is pretty decent evidence for common ancestry. On the other hand, the old world primates have 24 pairs of genes, while we have only 23. If evolution is correct, somehow a pair of monkey chromosomes must have fused. Chromosome ends contain recognizeable DNA sequences known as telomeres. It turns out we have identified the two ape chromosomes which fused to form a single human chromosome, and we even find the telomere markers within that chromosome.

There are plenty of other strong pieces of evidence. The Rh blood factor. The letters "Rh" came from the rhesus monkey, where the factor was first studied. Human females menstruate, procreate, give live birth, and nurse their young in much the same manner as apes. The differences between us and other primates are quite small.

Answer 2

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