if humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes?!?

Answer 1

Exactly what i think! It's so stupid!!

Answer 2

There were actually a few species of human that had evolved from some type of ape. Then over the years the species that we now know as human developed skills to separate them from the rest. The others lacking in these skills slowly died out also no doubt due to confrontation with 'early man'. And so I would summise that we did not directly evolve from apes but they are very distant cousins if you will, and therefore still around today.

Answer 3

Humans did not evolve from apes, at least not in the literal sense.

Humans and apes have a common anscestor, but we the parted ways a few milion years ago and went down a differnt evolotinary track. This common ancestor was more ape-like than human. It is therefore easier to say we evolved from apes.

After parting with the apes we split with our more humanlike cousins, but they didn't make it. Otherwise we would be having animals that are somewhere between ape and man.

Looking at the way humans treat each other. I won't be surprised if it is finally discovered that we wiped them out as soon as we were too different to breed with them.

All marmals descended from rodent like creatures, very similer to rats. So I guess we should say we evolved from rats.

Answer 4

If you understood the concept of evolution , you would know that if a species is divided long enough , by natural elements . Such as mountains , seas , or a river for instance . The separated groups will evolve differently according to their surroundings .
I was taught this in high school , and I was listening .
Were you ?
We may not have evolved from apes as we know them , although you cant deny we are primates . Or the variations in many species , including humans . Africans , Anglo's Asians , and so on .
As the world has got smaller with transportation the human race is evolving before our eyes . Races are mixing blood , over a long period of time Eurasians , and other people with mixed blood , will become the norm .
the evidence of evolution is before your eyes .
Open them .

Answer 5

Humans *are* apes. The most recent common ancestor of both humans and chimpanzees was approximately 6 million years ago.

The way to understand this is to remember that living organisms are in a state of constant change - It's not that evolution *can* occur, but that it *must* occur, simply because there is no mechanism in living organisms to ensure perfect, flawless reproduction for ever.

Suppose you could study a population of chimpanzees in the jungle, on a timescale of millions of years. Clearly, each individual only lives a few decades, so the population is constantly being succeeded by individuals which are different from their parents - and remember, this is *inevitable*. It can't *not* happen. All the time this population is inter-breeding, the genes are getting mixed together, and only genes which work well with all other chimpanzee genes will tend to get passed down to successive generations (because individuals with genes that don't work well together will tend not to reproduce).

However, suppose that circumstances arise which cause a group to become genetically isolated from other chimpanzees. This could be as a result of an accident of geography (e.g. an impassable river) or breeding preference or simply great distance. There will develop two distinct groups of chimpanzees which can never again exchange genes, because they have become different enough that mating will not produce viable offspring. This is what biologists define as speciation - i.e. the population has forever split into two distinct groups. Biologists have observed many instances of speciation, so there is no doubt that it occurs.

Assuming that both groups continue to survive, it is again *inevitable* that they will diverge genetically - There is no possible way that both groups, isolated and independent from each other, can change in exactly the same ways, and the longer they continue to breed, the more different they will become. Over millions of years, given that the rate of genetic change via mutation tends to remain fairly constant, the two groups will become as distinct as today's chimpanzees and humans are from each other, and from their most recent common ancestor.

All this is based on what we *know* is true - it's not supposition or guesswork, and remember it's not just possible, it absolutely *has* to happen, because there is no mechanism in biology to make reproduction a 100% perfect, flawless process.

Hope this is a useful explanation.

Answer 6

What a good question!!!
This is so silly if the theory is correct then we could still have apes but also some sort of creatures between humans and apes!
People don't seem to realise that the reason humans and apes have so many similarities is because we are both mammals!

Also we have to remember that a theory is just an idea and Darwin doubted and regretted his own theory by the time he died!

Answer 7

Apes are our "cousins". We share a common ancestry. We did not evolve directly from Apes. Finding that missing link has been the work of scientists for many years.

Answer 8

If poodles evolved from dogs, why are there still dogs? If Saint Bernhards evolved from dogs, why are there still dogs?

You see, we humans are apes. More specifically, we are chimpanzees. Africa used to have a humid climate, and all the chimpanzees were quite similar since they were all adapted to forest life. Some eight million years ago, eastern Africa got a dryer climate so the chimpanzees there started slowly to adapt to savanna/lake shore life. Most of those chimp varieties got extinct but a single variety is still alive, and after eight million years it has become so distinct from it's forest-dwelling cousins that we consider it a new species: Homo Sapiens.

So the simple answer to your question is: because not all of Africa became savanna. So there was still room for forest-adapted chimps.

Answer 9

Because the apes are still evolving and in a million years or so they will be sitting here on a computer asking the same question.

Answer 10

if you have two apes and they split up one ape learns to use a stone as a weapon it passes this on to it's son and it is passed on for 6 generations. then the descendants of the ape that moved away return they would not know how to use a stone as a weapon . if the apes that use a stone then continue to learn more they evolve , the other apes do not learn and do not evolve.

Answer 11

We're not really sure if we even evolved from apes. It's really only a guess. But consider this: if we evolved ultimately from single-celled organisms, we might note that they are still around. This is because they are obviously capable of surviving. If apes are our ancestors, they have obviously chosen not to become extinct either!

Simply put, if it can survive it will.