Humans and apes

[Delprete, Piero]

Dear Dr. Grehan,

I thought that the current agreement in the scientific community is that the
closest living hominid to Homo sapiens is the Bonobo pygmy chimpanzee.
This species seems to have the closest behaviour to the human one. I have
just recently read the a young bonobo rased in captivity is able to make
four distinct sounds "somewhat similar" to human sounds.

It is also a diffcult comparison because of the complex and little known
evolution of the species within the hominids. One of the theory about
hominid species is not linear, and it suggest that three species were
co-existing in Africa and the most violent one (Homo sapiens) killed the
other two. A specialist in the field should give you a most definite answer
to your quest, but these scientists are probably not likely to read taxacom.


Well, here are my two cents...

Piero Delprete
New York Botanical Garden




-----Original Message-----
From: john Grehan [mailto:jgrehan at SCIENCEBUFF.ORG]
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 9:25 AM
To: TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG
Subject: Humans and apes

I have a question regarding a primate exhibit we have prepared for our
museum. In this exhibit we present to the public the current state of
hominid systematics involving two major competing proposals for the nearest
living relative to humans. One hypothesis is the chimp (sometimes chimp and
gorilla), the other is the orangutan. We emphasize that there are two
candidates for nearest relative and that the answer is a matter of current
scientific debate.

In the popular science literature the orangutan hypothesis is usually
suppressed entirely (e.g. recent article in the Natural History magazine)
or glossed over if mentioned at all. In our exhibit we attempt to give some
of the evidence for each. I am curious to know whether any other museums
have presented both models to the public, or by some chance are we the
first?

Comments on that status or not for our exhibit would be most welcome. I
regret I have not had the opportunity to visit other museum primate
exhibits to even begin to answer this for myself and TAXACOM offers a
chance for me to obtain a global response.

John Grehan

Dr. John Grehan
Director of Science and Collections
Buffalo Museum of Science
1020 Humboldt Parkway
Buffalo, New York 14211-1293
Voice 716-896-5200 x372
Fax 716-897-6723
jgrehan at sciencebuff.org