Our Ancestors ( Archived) (4)

The purpose of this thread is to clear up a common misconception regarding the evolution of ourselves- homo sapiens.

The misconception is that "man descended from apes". You often hear this phrase in connexion with the term "missing link".

"Missing link" is an obsolete term that dates from a time when the fossil record of Man was just emerging, and was very much incomplete. Many specimens of early hominids had been found, but archaeologists at the time knew very little about them. At the time, there seemed to be a gap between Modern Man and the few primate fossil ancestors which had been found. The fossils seemed to indicate that Modern Man had somehow evolved from from gorilla-like primates. All of this early theorising has long-ago been swept away. What we know today is that Man, rather than being descended from apes, is in fact a member of the Great Apes. So- there is no "missing link", and Man is not descended from apes, but rather is a type of ape.

Apes are primates, and are divided into two categories- Great Apes and Lesser Apes. Both categories have a common ancestor- the tarsier. The tarsier we evolved from is long extinct, but the tarsier line kept right on going, and a few species of tarsier are still with us today.

So here is a video of our true ancestor- not another type of ape or some so-called "missing link", but the earliest form of primate:

WARNING! THE FOLLOWING VIDEO CONTAINS SCENES OF UNBELIEVABLE CUTENESS! VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED!