Two great apes — one small, one large — coexisted in what’s now Germany 11.6 million years ago, a new study says Two lines of ancient apes, including what may be the smallest great ape yet, lived ...

Scientists at the University of Vienna, Austria, have screened great ape specimens obtained from natural history museums to identify DNA viruses. This groundbreaking study provides unique insights ...

This new potential species—described in a study published recently in the journal PLOS One and given the name Buronius manfredschmidi—wouldn’t have been a competitor. Rather, it displayed a different ...

This overview traces the evolutionary timeline from the great apes to modern humans, explaining where hominids and hominins split and why that distinction matters. It moves through key branches ...

Australopithecus afarensis© "Australopithecus afarensis" by Rod Waddington is licensed under BY-SA 2.0. Natural history is a difficult thing to conceptualize. You’ve got eons of undocumented ...

Human evolution is a long and winding tale that goes back millions of years, but one aspect of our anatomy shaped up quickly compared to other mammals: our large brains and flat faces. As these ...

Researchers have discovered new insights into the human heart's structure, revealing its evolutionary history. This study enhances understanding of heart development and its implications for treating ...

The 23 rd chromosome base pair contains what are known as our sex chromosomes. For most females, this pair contains two X chromosomes, while for most males, it contains one X chromosome and one Y ...

What can chimpanzees teach us about ourselves? A lot, says Craig Stanford, who's spent three decades studying the lives of our closest cousins. Humans share upwards of 98% of their DNA with the great ...

Comprehensive reference genomes have now been assembled for six ape species: siamang (a Southeast Asian gibbon), Sumatran orangutan, Bornean orangutan, gorilla, bonobo and chimpanzee. Areas of their ...

In 1960, in the forests of Tanzania, against the backdrop of humanity’s existential century, primatologist Jane Goodall took a proverbial jackhammer to the definition of what it means to be human. For ...