hominoid

Three-dimensional models of hominoid skulls used in the study - (a) Hylobates lar; (b) Pongo pygmaeus; (c) Pan troglodytes; (d) Gorilla gorilla; (e) Australopithecus africanus; (f ) Paranthropus boisei; (g) Homo sapiens. They have been scaled to the same surface area, and the colors denote areas of stress (blue = minimal stress, pink = high stress). From Wroe et al, 2010. It is all too easy to think of human evolution in linear terms. From our 21st century vantage point we can look back through Deep Time for the first glimmerings of the traits we see in ourselves, and despite what we have…

The partial faces of Anoiapithecus (left), Pierolapithecus (center), and Dryopithecus (right). (Images not to scale) Our species is just one branch of a withering part of the evolutionary tree, the great apes. Along with the handful of species of chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, we are all that is left of the hominids, and considering the threats our close relatives face we could very soon be the only great apes left. It has not always been this way. During the swath of prehistory ~23-5 million years ago known as the Miocene a variety of ape species inhabited forests through much of…

... and made a real mess of the place when one of them spotted the jar of pickles on the counter. They fought over it until one of them had almost all the pickles and the other one had a number of bruises and a tiny fragment of one pickle that the other chimp dropped by accident. That would be the way it would happen if two chimps walked into a bar. Or imagine two chimps, and each finds a nice juicy bit of fruit out in the forest. And instead of eating the fruit, because they are not hungry, they carry it around for a while (this would never happen, but pretend) and then accidentally run…