• Question: If we evolved from apes, why do we still have apes?

    Asked by Eva to Connor, Jillian, Lidunka, Sarah, Steven on 18 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Steven Thomson

      Steven Thomson answered on 18 Jun 2015:

      I used to wonder this too when I was younger!

      Humans and apes evolved from a common ancestor, but we didn’t evolve directly from apes themselves. A long time ago there was some kind of animal that wasn’t human or ape. Descendents of this animal evolved into lots of separate species, among them the apes and the humans.

      (I’m no expert on this, but that’s my understanding of it, at least!)

    • Photo: Jillian Scudder

      Jillian Scudder answered on 18 Jun 2015:

      It’s more that both we and apes evolved from a common ancestor who was relatively ape-like, but not exactly like what we have now. The things that we and apes have in common now were likely things that our ancestor had, and the things that are different are things that developed after we divided!

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