Human ancestry (many questions) I hope these are new questions or new answers exist,

[anotherfilthyape]

I'm trying to find

 

1.the latest known ancestor we have that looks more like a primitive monkey (or a new world monkey or a lemur or a sifaka or any monkey with a prehensile or non-prehensile tail, preferibly prehensile) than like a human ancestor...

 

2.I am also searching for the latest common ancestor of gibbons and humans,

3.the latest known common ancestor of gorilla and humans,

4.the latest known common ancestor of spider monkeys and humans,

5.the latest known common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans and

 

6.the latest known common ancestor of orangutans and humans,

 

maybe

 

7.the latest known common ancestors of bili apes and humans too, and

 

8.the latest known common ancestors of bonobos and humans...

 

That is at least 6 ancestors of humans and maybe 8 (I dont know what is the phylogenetic relationship of bili apes and chimpanzees and gorillas and I understand they may be a subespecies of chimp and I dont know if bonobos are a subespecies or chimp or a cousin species and if their latest common ancestors with humans are the same latest common ancestors between chimps and humans) I know these 6 or 8 species might technically not be already known by science so I'm refering only to known species as I have specified... Anyone knows? Wikipedia is not a good source because despite its use of good reference it still lack proper answer to these questions...

 

and I acknowledge the first ancestor I am asking for might seem a subjective question because what is "more monkey than human" may seem arbitrary but I had an old time life book that claimed the bloodline is Pliopithecus-Proconsul-Dryopithecus-Ramapithecus-Australopithecus Afarensis-Australopithecus Africanus-Australopithecus Robustus-Australopithecus Boisei-Homo habilis, etc. But now I know many of these are not ancestors of humans and the Pliopithecus is not a human ancestor either (of these the one that feels the "looks more like a monkey than like a human ancestor is the Pliopithecus that looks like a gibbon or a spider monkey) although the book does acknowledge that some of these are actually cousins to humanity and admits that the pliopithecus is an ancestor of gibbons but it gives the impresion it is also an ancestor of humans and the other species I have named)

[paulhorth]

Try this link:

 

http://tolweb.org/Catarrhini/16293

 

 

This website allows you to move up and down the tree of life to explore the relationship between species.

The common ancestors you mention would be at the branch points in the tree - but of course not all f them have been found.

 

Paul

[anotherfilthyape]

Thanks Paul, I will try

 

Edit: I tried and the link is not helping me, it fails to give any detailed info on human ancestors, I mean, it only show non-extinct species with the exception of cousin species that did not survive, it does not shows ancestors but cousin species...

Edited April 9, 2012 by anotherfilthyape

[paulhorth]

That's because the exact ancestors are not known.

If you find a fossil, you can say that, based on careful comparisons, it shows a relationship with this existing animal or with that other fossil, to a greater or lesser degree than with others.These relationships can support placing the fossil in this or that branch of a tree, but you can never say, even in principle, that fossil X represents the direct ancestor of fossil Y or living species Z.

 

Even DNA can't show that. My DNA might have quite a lot in common with that of Julius Caesar (if we had a specimen) , but that does not amount to proof that he was my ancestor (or was not).

 

All we can really say about common ancestors is that they probably had a list of characteristics that are shared by their descendants,

 

Paul

[CharonY]

Using molecular clocks you can estimate the time of the split. Check timetree, for example.

[anotherfilthyape]

That's because the exact ancestors are not known.

If you find a fossil, you can say that, based on careful comparisons, it shows a relationship with this existing animal or with that other fossil, to a greater or lesser degree than with others.These relationships can support placing the fossil in this or that branch of a tree, but you can never say, even in principle, that fossil X represents the direct ancestor of fossil Y or living species Z.

 

Even DNA can't show that. My DNA might have quite a lot in common with that of Julius Caesar (if we had a specimen) , but that does not amount to proof that he was my ancestor (or was not).

 

All we can really say about common ancestors is that they probably had a list of characteristics that are shared by their descendants,

 

Paul

 

mmm... So... how do we proof evolution is right with humans? I mean, I know creationism is just uuter garbagre and completly stupid but... If you cannot prove ancestry, how do we prove human evolution? And I find many species being refered to as ancestors of other species, rather than as cousin of said species' ancestors, both in Time Life and Wikipedia...

[CharonY]

We do can trace back lineages using existing species. We just have little information (in some cases) regarding the precise nature, physiology etc. of all our ancestors. Which makes sense, of course as they are long dead and extinct. And , if we had the genomes of the respective species (which we don't as they will have degraded by now), we could estimate relationships.

[anotherfilthyape]

We do can trace back lineages using existing species. We just have little information (in some cases) regarding the precise nature, physiology etc. of all our ancestors. Which makes sense, of course as they are long dead and extinct. And , if we had the genomes of the respective species (which we don't as they will have degraded by now), we could estimate relationships.

 

Charon, if so is the way things are... can you gimme the solution to my 8 original questions? The ones posted in my original post? Please...

[CharonY]

For the above reasons your question cannot be answered the way you phrased it. However, if you can check up timetree to find out when the lineages split.

[anotherfilthyape]

the one I voiced the worst was "I am also searching for the latest common ancestor of gibbons and humans" because I did not specify "known"... but I know we can know for sure if X is the father of Y... So thriough your own claims and by extrapolatin I guess we could have a family tree for species... Cant we? Good enough to answer my questions, anyway, the link: " http://tolweb.org/Catarrhini/16293 " is not as deep as I had expected...

 

Just checked what timetree is... It seems to be better at giving ages for time split but worse at giving ancestry (no naming of ancestors just calculations of splits)... And it lacks some famous species from its list (polar bear, true sharks, true piranhas, saltwater crocodiles, electric eels, etc) and some not so famous species (bili apes)... etc...

Edited April 10, 2012 by anotherfilthyape

[CharonY]

This tool is dependent on the availability of genetic information in these species.

 

Aah, known ancestors. That is a different thing, of course. Unfortunately it is not really my field, but from the data we are looking at an Hominoidea ancestor around 18-20 Mya. I am not sure whether fossils have been found, to give it a name. A related earlier fossil is represented by Saadanius hijazensis (around 24-29 Mya, IIRC). Of course it is not easy to state whether this species is precisely the common ancestor, or just related to it.

[DevilSolution]

I imagine they all share the same totem, i also imagine that the closest ancestor of most monkeys in relation to us are each other, though i know no specifics of the branching. As far as im aware species dont evolve at different speeds, just for different purposes. Not sure if this helps.

 

[anotherfilthyape]

thanks for the answers and I had a list of 7 ancient species; Proconsul africanus, Ardipithecus ramidus, Nakalipithecus nakayamai, Aegyptopithecus zeuxis, Saadanius hijazensis, Pierolapithecus catalaunicus, Orrorin tugenensis, some of these are identified as ancestors of humans, I was searching for others that are more relevant to what I wanted to illustrate and those are the ones I asked for... thanks anyway, however now I wish experts came in to answer my questions...