• Question: if humans evolved from apes why are there still apes around. and why havent other animals evolved into humans, why just apes?

    Asked by coventrygal to Fiona, Joanna, William on 24 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: William Davies

      William Davies answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      we didn’t evolve from apes, we evolved from a common ancestor which us and the apes shared – the apes evolved from this, and so did we (just in slightly different ways!)

    • Photo: Fiona Randall

      Fiona Randall answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      That is a clever question. I am not sure. Suppose the world is a big place and there is room for all of us. In some areas humans have hunted apes to near extinction-like the mountain gorilla. This could be a sort of survival pressure. And also through logging of rainforests where some promates live, they have lost their habitat so more open to being hunted etc.

    • Photo: Joanna Brooks

      Joanna Brooks answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Hello hon! This is a good question and one that is still being explored by evolutionary psychologists today.

      Modern humans are thought to have evolved tens of thousands of years ago after breaking away from chimpanzees and gorillas millions of years before that. The human brain has evolved because humans needed to find better ways to hunt – by designing and making better tools for example – and needed to make better shelters for their families to protect them from things like harsh weather conditions and other predators.

      But not all species can evolve in the same way and this is called ‘natural selection’ – humans evolved because of some sort of genetic mutation but this was not present in every species. Apes like gorillas and chimpanzees also evolved but in a different way for example – they adapted to their environment by changing their diet and the way they socialised.

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