If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes?

Answer 1

If Christians came from Jews, why do we still have Jews?

Answer 2

For simplicity, imagine all the apes in the world are in one tribe. In the forest where the tribe live there are some trees with sugary fruit, which is the favourite food of these particular apes.

The fruit is abundant in the highest branches that are too weak and bendy to support the larger apes, so the smaller members of the colony have a ready food supply.

The medium sized apes can feed from the sparsely fruited lower branches, and supplement their diet with other grubs they find on the trees and on the forest floor.

The largest of the apes in the tribe survive by reaching up to the low hanging branches and scouring the ground for the fruit that the smaller apes accidentally shake down.

So all the apes in the tribe can eat.

Over tens of thousands of years and millions of accidental deaths due to falls, the monkeys with the best climbing skills have become dominant in the upper branches, their tails help them balance and hold on to get at the fruit when it is scarce; they are nimble and quick.

The larger apes have lost their tails and have become territorial over the trees they live below. Thousands of years of fighting has resulted in the weakest apes dying off, so these are now very large and muscular ground dwellers.

The medium sized apes have become extinct because the smaller apes are better climbers and the bigger apes kill them when they come to the ground to forage for food.

So that's a simple example of how, over a few thousand years, a community can split and evolve due to the available resources.

Evolution is not about changing to be better at something, it's about a chance configuration of genes that that gives an advantage which, over time becomes a recognizable trait.

In short, apes and monkeys still exist because they are well suited to their environment which still exists today, and which has not been taken over by others claiming the territory as their own.

With massive global deforestation, it may not be long before there are no more wild apes and monkeys.

Answer 3

What is it with people asking this question? We didn't evolve from monkeys or apes. Our Primitive ancestors were an off shoot of apes, cousins if you will. They evolved much quicker than the others.

Perhaps in another eon or so humanity will evolve into energy and monkeys and apes will evolve to something similar that we are today.

Answer 4

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 5

That's like asking why there is more than one kind of bird or dog in the world.
Grow a brain.
Evolution is not about extinction, it is about creation. The creation of a new species to better exploit the environment does not require the extinction of the less evolved species. Thus we have sharks (very primitive fish) AND barracudas (highly evolved fish). Thus we have apes AND human beings.
Got it now?


Good. Here's a banana.

Answer 6

Man has evolved from an extinct ape species, who we are searching for (the missing link).This missing link is also related very closely to the chimpanzee and the gorilla. According to biology, we are more related to the chimpanzee than the chimpanzee is related to the gorilla. An elementary book on evolution would explain this. Make America proud - get informed.

Answer 7

Once up on a time,during our lifetime there was a highly developed person composed of monkey and ape. This person had the brain of a bird (Bird Brain) or was it an ingrown hair making him a (Hair brain).He saw a person and thought they must have come from me, my off spring. Then he said , I bet this will keep the humans busy for decades to come, my publications on this matter of evolution.

Answer 8

Sorry Charlie! genes were taken from particular animals to create the human animals. Look in the mirror and let us know which animal you look like and that will be your answer. We all know our skin genes came from pigs which are synthetically spliced with different unknowns.
You should be tired with the underground government saying human came from monkeys and ape so did AIDS, what next.
LOL

Answer 9

Here's something for all you budding anthropologists out there.
Arvell said what some of you took 50 lines of text to say (take a lesson). To me the most important and unsolved mystery in the evolution of man came at the time anthropologists call "The great leap forward", when hominids in a extremely short time became able to create and reason. So far, the only explanation is the intervention of a supernatural force. Check it out. Excellent question, you made my day. Rat

Answer 10

that is one of the best questions i've seen yet. must mean we didn't evolve from monkeys after all. i sure hope that the people that believe that see this question, mayby they will end up scratching thier heads like the apes they think we are, huh?

Answer 11

there are still monkeys and apes on earth to show us humans how far we have evolved, and to be greatful that we dont still swing in the trees!!!