By Lu Kuan-Chung The origin of the human species had been debated for hundreds of years. A lot of theories were raised, especially by people from certain religious groups. It wasn’t until Darwin’s innovative idea about the origin of species that provoked us with a crazy thought: Honey monkey, we are family! Although it might have seemed disturbing to admit that the manlike beasts roaring in cages, and the naughty figures with long tails jumping up and down are our relatives. A lot of scholars fought back to protect themselves from being marked as having a close relationship to other primates. But, more and more evidence from archaeology, biology, anthropology, and other fields have been found to support the theory of evolution. Primates are no doubt more similar to us than animals such as pigs, chickens, or fish. Does this thought give you relief? It is no harm to know that we are close. The question is how close we are. △In the chart above, you can trace humans (homo), chimpanzees (pan), gorillas (gorilla), and orangutans (pongo) to the same superfamily. Gorillas – the largest of existing primates. Gorillas live in the forests of Africa, they are the second closest relatives to humans after chimpanzees, but they are larger. They are so large that they are often used as monsters in movies. I’d say one of the most famous is King Kong, and Tarzan movies, too. Amazingly, gorillas have a natural lifespan of 30-50 years, which is very close to that of human beings. Gorillas are different from chimpanzee not only in size but also in appearance. If a human, a chimpanzee, and a gorilla were lined up, the human would be the smallest and chimp of medium size; a human has the most prominent nose; a chimp has a nose like a dog, and a gorilla has two holes in its nose. Orangutans – people of the forest. The most obvious trait of an orangutan is its long arms and reddish-brown hair. They are currently only found in rainforests on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. However, fossils show that the orangutans are native to Indonesia and Malaysia and their habitat once included Vietnam and China. The name “orangutan” is derived from a Malay phrase “orang hutan,” which means “person of the forest.” According to recent research by James Lee, a psychologist from Harvard University, orangutans are the world’s most intelligent animal other than man. They have higher learning and problem solving abilities than chimpanzees. They use leaves to make rain hats and roofs over their sleeping nests to survive in the rainforest. Monkeys – a monkey is any member of either New World monkeys or Old World monkeys. Genetically, monkeys are less like men. They separated from the stem of the human family earlier than other existing primates. But they also have social activities and ways to communicate with each other. They are very good at mimicking human behavior. They look cute and smart but they are more like pets than relatives. Some monkeys in Japan even take hot spring baths during the winter, which awes a lot of tourists. a
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May 2024
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