Chimps more human than apes

2003-05-20 08:24

Washington - Humans and chimpanzees descended from a common ancestor and deserve to be categorised together, according to a DNA study released on Monday.

Chimps and people share 99.4% of their genes, researchers found. So, chimps should be moved from their current category alongside apes and into the genus homo.

Humans are the only current occupants of the genus homos, meaning "man."

Researchers at Wayne State University School of Medicine studied the genes of people, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, monkeys and mice.

The scientists were helped in the construction of a taxonomic tree by the genetic mutations affecting the production of proteins that show the degree of similarity among the six species.

They concluded that humans and chimpanzees occupied sister branches of the taxonomic tree, having descended from a common ancestor five million to six million years ago, according to the study led by Morris Goodman of Wayne State in Michigan.

Gorillas come in third closest to humans, followed by orangutans and monkeys. The primates are all genetically distant from mice, whose genetic evolution was used as a control.

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. - Sapa-AFP

- SAPA