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The genus Pan is now considered to be part of the subfamily Homininae to which humans also belong. Biologists believe that the two species of chimpanzees are the closest living evolutionary relatives to humans. Their common ancestor branched off from its latest common ancestor with us as recently as four to seven million years ago, and they have about 95 to 98 percent of their DNA in common with humans. It has even been proposed that chimpanzees should be recatagorized in the genus Homo as well. The argument for this is that other species have been reclassified to belong to the same genus on the basis of less genetic similarity than that between humans and chimpanzees. However, it is very important where the differences in the genome appear. The study published by Clark and Nielsen of the Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States in the journal Science in December 2003 highlights differences related to one of humankind’s defining qualities — the ability to understand language and to communicate through speech, also in the genes for smell, in genes that enable humans and chimps to metabolize amino acids and in genes that may affect the ability to digest various protein. The fact that many chimpanzees have been taught to use hundreds of sign language words, and have sometimes passed on this knowledge to their offspring, indicates that "language" may not be such a major divider between humans and other hominids. See the history of hominoid taxonomy for more about the history of the classification of chimpanzees. |
