Biology:Orangutan – human last common ancestor
The phylogenetic split of Hominidae into the subfamilies Homininae and Ponginae is dated to the middle Miocene, roughly 18 to 14 million years ago. This split is also referenced as the "orangutan–human last common ancestor” by Jeffrey H. Schwartz, professor of anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Arts and Sciences, and John Grehan, director of science at the Buffalo Museum.
Phylogeny
Below is a cladogram with extinct species.[1][2][3]
| Hominidae (18) |
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Hominoidea (apes) are thought to have evolved in Africa by about 18 million years ago. Among the genera thought to be in the ape lineage leading up to the emergence of the great apes (Hominidae) about 13 million years ago are Proconsul, Rangwapithecus, Dendropithecus, Nacholapithecus, Equatorius, Afropithecus and Kenyapithecus, all from East Africa. During the early Miocene, Europe and Africa were connected by land bridges over the Tethys Sea. Apes show up in Europe in the fossil record beginning 17 million years ago. Great apes show up in the fossil record in Europe and Asia beginning about 12 million years ago.[4] The only living great ape in Asia is the orangutan.[5]
Various genera of dryopithecines have been identified and are classified as an extinct sister clade of the Homininae. Dryopithecines was first uncovered in France and it had a large frontal sinus which ties it to the African great apes. Orangutans do not have a large frontal sinus.[6] The study of Dryopithecini as an outgroup to Hominidae suggests a date earlier than 8 million years ago for the Homininae-Ponginae split. It also suggests that the Homininae group evolved in Africa or Western Eurasia, against the theory that Homininae were originally an Asian line.[6]
During the later Miocene the climate in Europe started to change as the Himalayas were rising and European became cooler and drier. About 9.5 million years ago tropical forest in Europe was replaced by woodlands which were less suitable for great apes and European Homininae (close to the Dryopithecini-Hominini split) appear to have migrated back to Africa where they would have diverged into Gorillini and Hominini.[6] Plant fossils reveal that forests use to once extend “from southern Europe, through Central Asia, and into China prior to the formation of the Himalayas”. This suggests that the ancestral hominoid once lived throughout a vast area and as the Earth's climate and ecosystems changed, the ancestral hominoids ultimately became geographically isolated from one another.[7]
Genomes and Ecology
The orangutan genome has many unique features. Structural evolution of the orangutan genome has proceeded much slower than other great apes, evidenced by fewer rearrangements, less segmental duplication, and a lower rate of gene family turnover. Diversity among the orangutan populations may not be maintained with continued habitat loss and population fragmentation.[8] Evolutionary evidence from other species suggests fragmentation will not halt diversity, but their slow reproduction rate and arboreal lifestyle may leave the orangutan species especially vulnerable to rapid dramatic environmental change.[8]
Orangutans represent an older lineage of great apes dating from 12–16 million years ago. Though orangutans are the most phylogenetically distant great apes from humans, they nonetheless share significant similarities: equally large brains, high intelligence, slow lives, hunting, meat-eating, reliance on technology, culture, and language capacity. Experts often argue that orangutans resemble humans the most closely, showing greater bipedalism, subtle intellectual advantages, and the longest childhood growth and period of dependency.[5]
See Also
- History of hominoid taxonomy
- Gibbon–human last common ancestor
- Gorilla–human last common ancestor
- Chimpanzee–human last common ancestor
- List of human evolution fossils
References
- ↑ Grabowski, Mark; Jungers, William L. (12 October 2017). "Evidence of a chimpanzee-sized ancestor of humans but a gibbon-sized ancestor of apes". Nature Communications 8 (1): 880. doi:10.1038/s41467-017-00997-4. PMID 29026075. Bibcode: 2017NatCo...8..880G.
- ↑ Nengo, Isaiah; Tafforeau, Paul; Gilbert, Christopher C.; Fleagle, John G.; Miller, Ellen R.; Feibel, Craig; Fox, David L.; Feinberg, Josh et al. (10 August 2017). "New infant cranium from the African Miocene sheds light on ape evolution". Nature 548 (7666): 169–174. doi:10.1038/nature23456. PMID 28796200. Bibcode: 2017Natur.548..169N. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1570349/1/Spoor_Nengo-et-al_text.pdf.
- ↑ Malukiewicz, Joanna; Hepp, Crystal M.; Guschanski, Katerina; Stone, Anne C. (January 2017). "Phylogeny of the jacchus group of Callithrix marmosets based on complete mitochondrial genomes". American Journal of Physical Anthropology 162 (1): 157–169. doi:10.1002/ajpa.23105. PMID 27762445.
- ↑ Dawkins, Richard (2016). The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-547-52512-9.[page needed]
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Russon, Anne (November 2009). "Orangutans". Current Biology 19 (20): R925–R927. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2009.08.009. PMID 19889362.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Kunimatsu, Yutaka; Nakatsukasa, Masato; Sawada, Yoshihiro; Sakai, Tetsuya; Hyodo, Masayuki; Hyodo, Hironobu; Itaya, Tetsumaru; Nakaya, Hideo et al. (4 December 2007). "A new Late Miocene great ape from Kenya and its implications for the origins of African great apes and humans". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 104 (49): 19220–19225. doi:10.1073/pnas.0706190104. PMID 18024593. Bibcode: 2007PNAS..10419220K.
- ↑ Grehan, John R.; Schwartz, Jeffrey H. (October 2009). "Evolution of the second orangutan: phylogeny and biogeography of hominid origins". Journal of Biogeography 36 (10): 1823–1844. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2699.2009.02141.x.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Locke, Devin P.; Hillier, LaDeana W.; Warren, Wesley C.; Worley, Kim C.; Nazareth, Lynne V.; Muzny, Donna M.; Yang, Shiaw-Pyng; Wang, Zhengyuan et al. (27 January 2011). "Comparative and demographic analysis of orangutan genomes". Nature 469 (7331): 529–533. doi:10.1038/nature09687. PMID 21270892. Bibcode: 2011Natur.469..529L.
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