Who are primates closest relatives

1
Who are primates closest relatives?
bats and rodents
What distinguishes primates from bats, rodents
and other mammals?
partial transition from claw to nail reduced
ability to synthesize vitamin C litter size of
one (among normal healthy females) opposable
thumbs reduction of the olfactory (smell)
system highly developed hand-eye coordination
(i.e., binocular, stereoscopic color
vision) fossils having these features date back
to 60 million years ago
http//edcintl.cr.usgs.gov/madagascar.html
2
What do apes humans have in common compared to
other primates?
loss of tail partial bipedality (walking
upright) reduced incisors skull aligned
vertically over the jaw region short facial
snout Fossils with these features date back to
as old as 31 Ma
rainforest action network
3
What do chimps humans have in common compared
to other great apes?
right-hand dominance highly self-aware sexual
activity decoupled from reproduction (a very rare
trait) omnivory (others are strictly
vegetarians) delayed sexual maturity until teen
or pre-teenage prominent external genitalia for
both male and female a mandible joint that is
positioned in the middle with respect to
the side profile of the skull.
4
What do humans and our direct ancestors and
relatives have in common compared to chimps?
fully bipedal loss of knuckle-walking (although
two australopithecines have indications of
knuckle-walking) loss of opposable 5th
toe Fossils having these features date back to
as old as 5-6 Ma.
5
Are there any fossils that resemble something
like the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and
humans?
YES!
.maybe
talk.origins archives
6
OK, fine, but if this supposed link between
humans and chimpanzees is really correct, and our
lineages diverged about 6 million years ago,
there should be fossil intermediates between our
last common ancestor and modern humans, right?
7
Australopithecus afarensis
fossils from 3 to 3.9 million years ago small
brain, but larger than modern chimps otherwise
the skull is more chimp- than human-like, except
for the teeth the pelvis and leg bones are more
human-like than chimp-like the length of the
fingers is a bit more chimp-like, suggesting some
connection with tree climbing, but otherwise the
hands are more human-like definitely bipedal
from Humankind Emerging, B. Campbell (ed.)
8
A. africanus is very similar to A. afarensis,
except A. africanus is slightly more recent
(between 2 and 3 million years old), slightly
larger in total body (and possibly brain) size,
and had an even more human like (parabolic) jaw
from Humankind Emerging, B. Campbell (ed.)
9
The (in)famous Australopithecus afarensis fossil
Lucy
CLAIM
The one that is in the textbooks now that is the
most famous is called Lucy.  How many have ever
heard of Lucy before?  Better known as
australopithicus atherensis sic, scientific
name.  Donald Johanson found Lucy at Dar sic
Valley, Ethiopia in 1974 it was 40 of the
skeleton.  This is considered the most complete
skeleton ever found.  There is a real controversy
about the knee joint.  The knee joint that he
found a mile and a half away from the rest of the
skeleton was labeled in National Geographic as
Lucys Knee, Donald never corrected them it
was not Lucys knee found a mile and a half
away.  He let the error slip through because he
wanted them to think, well maybe that is the
same.  There is a long story on that 200 feet
deeper in the strata, by the way.
-Kent Hovind AKA Dr. Dino a creationist
South Carolina lecture transcript
FACT
Johanson never said that the knee in question
was Lucys but he did say (and the evidence
supports this) that it from another A. afarensis
individual. He also has clearly stated this in
his writings (including his book on Lucy). Also,
the knee is not the only evidence for bipedality
in Lucy and other Australopithecus fossils. This
is from a QA period following one of Johansons
talks Q. How far away from Lucy did you find
the knee? A. Sixty to seventy meters lower in
the strata and two to three kilometers away.
This has later been distorted by many
creationists (including Hovind) to mean that
Johanson was talking about Lucys knee. Hovind
has agreed to stop using this claim in his talks,
though a search of his website still finds it
there.
10
Homo erectus
existed between 1.8 million and 800,000 years
ago skull is very human like (much more so than
Australopithecus species) brain size almost
double that of Australopithecus, and increased as
time passed fossil finds suggest use of fire and
increasingly complex stone tools
Australopithecus boisei (1.7 million years old)
Homo erectus (between 0.8 and 1.7 million years
old)
Pan troglodytes (chimp, modern)
Homo sapien (300,000 years old)