What is the name of the ancestor that humans and apes evolved from?

i am just curious to know what is the name of the ancestor that humans and apes evolved from and is there any proof of this transformation where apes and humans go their separate paths? i have read many answers to why why are there still monkeys around if humans evolved from them, and many of the answers say that they both evolved from this "ancestor". Also what was the difference in the environment that made these changes besides that monkeys live in trees.

What is the name of the ancestor that humans and apes evolved from?
No, the entire theory of evolution is just that, a theory. There is very little real proof that humans evolved from apes at all.





In a universe as big as ours with countless planets it is more than likely that there is life on other planets and perhaps we came from them.
Reply:A likely common ancestor of all great apes including humans, chimps, bonobos, gorillas and Orangutans was the proconsul.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proconsulid...


It is likely that proconsul, or a close relative, is the ancestor of all the great apes. And yes, the common ancestor was also an ape, just not a modern ape. Humans are apes so it is kind of hard to say when we separated from them That requires definitions of what is meant by being human. Something like Lucy or afarensis must have been more like an upright chimp than a human if you go by brain size which wasn't much beyond a chimp.
Reply:I think you want to ask first have they found the missing link. Find the one that has been called the missing link and both questions would be answered. The name of the first ancestor, The point which ape and humans took their different paths. The missing link has been the whole reason for the debate. But it is said, the remains of a creature found they nick named Lucy. Has been the oldest known remains to been found. Not a fossil either, lucy's age is as close as they have been to that answer.
Reply:The ancestor of humans/apes is NOT neandertals. They are a branch off of an earlier species, which we are all descent from, which is australopithecus, which itself had a variety of evolutions to become the form which we and apes evolved from. Homo habilis, erectus, etc, all evolved from the species of australopithecus. Which one is a source of debate in physical anthropology..
Reply:It's a common fallacy that we evolved FROM apes, we separated from Chimps about 5-7 million years ago (a quarter of a million generations). They went their way and we went into the African plains (or even to the sea, which would explain why we lost our hair, have funny noses and got brainy!). I'm not sure what that common ancestor was called. The Ancestor's Tale by R. Dawkins is a fascinating book (and audiobook) that goes back in time, meeting all our ancestors. Good luck!
Reply:To begin with the humans that branched from earlier apes are not modern humans but one of the several Homo species we know of (perhaps Homo habilis). Neither are the apes that our line branched from the modern-day apes but extinct species known only from fossil evidence.





We share a common ancestor with the primates listed on the right at every branch of the main stem of this diagram:


http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/6109/...





In front of this diagram could be drawn more branches that link all simians and apes with all the other primates, and all the primates with the other mammals, mammals with all vertebrates, vertebrates with other animal phyla, animals with fungi, fungi with plants, etc - and at the point of each branching there is a common ancestor for all of the groups that arise after the branch.





We do not have enough information to identify every common ancestor in our own unique evolutionary history. - what we have is something like this:


http://www.ecotao.com/holism/evosummary....





Humans %26amp; chimps - common ancestor a species of Ardipithecus?





Humans+chimps %26amp; gorillas+orangutans - common ancestor a species of Pierolapithecus?





Humans+chimps+gorillas+orangutans %26amp; gibbons - common ancestor a species of Kenyapithecus, Equatorius, Morotopithecus or Afropithecus.





http://www.ecotao.com/holism/hu_evo_intr...
Reply:Here are some links that might help you:





http://evolution.berkeley.edu/





http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibits/in...





http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life...





http://www.newscientist.com/channel/bein...
Reply:Bats, just in time for holloween, if you don't believe me, look up human evolution in wikipedia.
Reply:neanderthalensis








Human evolution is the theory which states that humans developed from primates, or ape-like, ancestors. In 1856, a strange skull was found by some workmen in the Neander Valley in Germany. The odd appearance of the skull led some to believe that it had once belonged to a person who was afflicted with rickets. They did not believe it could have come from an ancestor of modern man. It did, however, form the notion that there could have been creatures that were half-human and half-ape. Ernst Heinrich, a German scientist, claimed that if such a creature were ever found it should be named Pithecanthropus erectus, which means upright apeman.





Even before the discovery of the skull, which is now known as Homo neanderthalensis, people hypothesized that there was some sort of transmutation that took place between species. This, however, was not widely accepted. On November 4, 1859, the view on evolution as a whole changed dramatically. This was the date that Charles Darwin published his work The Origin of Species. With the release of this work, the theory of human evolution became a bit more believable. The theory of natural selection was proposed by Darwin within The Origin of Species. This theory states that the physical traits of an organism are selected for according to the environment it lives in.





Darwin's theory piqued the interest of many scientists who went out in search of evidence which would branch the gap between apes and humans. In 1890, a Dutch physician by the name of Eugene Dubois found a low, apelike skull on the banks of a river in Java. Dubois also discovered a humanlike thigh bone near the skull. He concluded that this creature was the link between apes and humans which Heinrich hypothesized about. Other fossils began to be found which appeared to be transitional.





In 1925, Raymond Dart found a skull which was the first to be classified as Australopithecus. The skull looked apelike in appearance, but had humanlike teeth. Dart discovered the skull in a box of fossilized bones sent to him from Tuang. Mary and Louis Leakey also found a number of Australopithecine fossils. The Leakey's main area of focus was the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. Another researcher, Donald Johanson, found similar fossils in the Afar region of Ethiopia. Johanson is credited with finding the fossil skeleton of "Lucy", an Australopithecus afarensis, which shows that ancestors of humans were walking upright at around 3.6 million years ago.





As the amount of finds increased, so did the number of species. Today, the family Hominidae (Bipedal Primates) has grown to include the genus': Ardipithecus, the most apelike hominids. Australopithecus, small-brained gracile hominids with mixed fruit/vegetable diet. Paranthropus, smalled-brained robust hominids with a grassland vegetable diet. Homo, large-brained hominids with an omnivorous diet. These are just brief descriptions of the genus given above. Below are some examples of the genus Australopithecus and Paranthropus that eventually led to the view of the Hominidae family we have today.





A. anemensis


A. afarensis


A. africanus


A. aethiopicus


P. robustus


P. boisei


(A. is an abbreviation for Australopithecus)


(P. is an abbreviation for Paranthropus)





Even though these fossils had both human and ape characteristics, the apelike qualities outnumbered the human ones. Scientists sought to find fossils that were closer to modern man than the Australopithecines. In the early 1960's, Louis Leakey found what he thought was another P. boisei skull, however, the brain case was larger than previous finds. After collaboration with P.V. Tobias and J.R. Napier, he named the skull Homo habilis, which means "handy man". He came up with this name because of the tools found at the site of the skull. Leakey figured that the enlarged brain size made it possible for H. habilis to form tools according to how his/her mind perceived it should look like. Other species of this genus that were found include H. erectus, H. neanderthalensis, and our own species, H. sapiens sapiens.





Some controversy concerning the labeling of H. neanderthalensis as H. sapiens neanderthalensis has arisen in past years, as to whether it should be considered part of the sapiens line. Previously, Neanderthals were considered to have been the transitory form from H. erectus to H. sapiens sapiens. The ideology then shifted to a position that Neanderthals were not a transitory form, but were instead a genetic dead end. Their abrupt disappearance in the fossil record has yielded suggestions that Neanderthals were outcompeted and replaced by anatomically modern human beings. The current viewpoint among many people is that Neanderthals were in fact a separate species and have been labeled by some as H. neanderthalensis, dropping "sapiens" from the name.
Reply:According to the overwelming evidence that supports the Theory of Evolution, drawn from phylogentic comparison and well as DNA analysis the common ancestor for humans and chimpanzees existed around 5-6 million years ago.





Without the actual DNA of this species science will never be able to point to a single extinct species and say it was definitely the common ancestor, just that a species is the most probable common ancestor.





The fossil record of forest dwelling ancient apes is sparse as acid soils tend to dissolve bone so we do not have a lot of examples from the period.





It has been suggested that species close to last common ancestors of gorillas, chimpanzees and humans may be represented by Nakalipithecus fossils found in Kenya and Ouranopithecus found in Greece





For the chimpanzee/human split no species has been firmly identified but it would be similar to early examples of Ardipithecus or Australopithecus. Another possibility is Sahelanthropus tchadensis but more examples need to be found as its possible that this fossil ape represents an early member of the gorilla lineage. A further possibility is Orrorin tugenensis.





The main factor that seems to have driven the differences between chimpanzees and the ancestors of modern humans was a process of emergence from heavy forests into the plains resulting in a more gracile (slender) bone structure with a reduction is jaw size and a move to a bipedal stance better suited to walking in open spaces.





As for solid evidence of the link between modern apes and humans the most compelling evidence is the similarity in our genomes, the fusion of human chromosome 2 from ape chromosomes (2p and 2q) and also the pattern of multiple Endogenous Retroviral (ERV) insertions in the genomes of the apes.





Strictly speaking Humans are Apes, just as we are mammals.





The "why are there still monkeys" argument is a very silly one, its akin to saying why are these still wolves now that we have bred dogs by domesticating wolves. The whole concept of evolution is that species change and diverge, often adapting to new environmental niches, its an explanation for the diversity of life.