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Course: American Museum of Natural History > Unit 3
Lesson 2: Human evolution: the evidence (American Museum of Natural History)- Dr. Ian Tattersall pieces together the human past
- Glossary
- Seven million years of human evolution
- Understanding our past: DNA
- What is the evidence for human evolution
- Searching for Human Ancestors in East Africa
- Expedition Rusinga—uncovering our adaptive origins
- Quiz: Human evolution
- Exploration Questions: Human evolution
- Answers to Exploration Questions: Human evolution
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Seven million years of human evolution
Google ClassroomScientists use fossils to reconstruct the evolutionary history of hominins—the group that includes modern humans, our immediate ancestors, and other extinct relatives. Today, our closest living relatives are chimpanzees, but extinct hominins are even closer. Where and when did they live? What can we learn about their lives? Why did they go extinct? Scientists look to fossils for clues. Created by American Museum of Natural History.
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at1:05- What is the difference between Hominoidea and Hominedae(6 votes)
The Hominidae also known as great apes form a taxonomic family of primates, including four extant genera: the chimpanzees (Pan) with 2 species; gorillas (Gorilla) with 2 species; humans (Homo) with 1 species; and orangutans (Pongo) with 2 species.
Where as Apes (Hominoidea) are a branch of Old World tailless anthropoid catarrhine primates native to Africa and Southeast Asia and distinguished by a wide degree of freedom at the shoulder joint indicating the influence of brachiation. There are two main branches: the gibbons, or lesser apes; and the hominids or great apes.
Source :- Wikipedia(6 votes)
you all realize that this stuff isn't true right?(5 votes)- you are absolutely right(1 vote)
We might normally be tailless but we are sometimes born with tails or with a missing limb or an extra limb and animals that normally have tails are sometimes born tailless.
So if a monkey gets some kind of mutation that makes its tail either develop and then retract or not develop at all then would it be a monkey with a mutation or an ape since apes are essentially tailless monkeys?(3 votes)
Who are included in apes?(2 votes)
why does it matter? We are what we are.(0 votes)
Only humans think humans matter. (OK and dogs...)
Humans are simply just one of an enormous amount of different species that call earth home. Even if they follow on their current path and destroy the planet for human habitation, other species will take their place at the top of the food chain but they won't matter either.(4 votes)
1:05