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Bonobos Join Chimps As Closest Human Relatives

sciencehabit writes "Chimpanzees now have to share the distinction of being our closest living relative in the animal kingdom. An international team of researchers has sequenced the genome of the bonobo for the first time, confirming that it shares the same percentage of its DNA with us as chimps do. The team also found some small but tantalizing differences in the genomes of the three species—differences that may explain how bonobos and chimpanzees don't look or act like us even though we share about 99% of our DNA."

5 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Bonobo Chimpanzee by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Informative

    Irrelevant. Geographic separation is a direct cause of speciation. Gene pools stop mixing, genetic drift pushes two similar groups far enough apart that they are no longer compatible.

  2. Re:1% of three billion by codewarren · · Score: 4, Informative

    The difference from humans to other humans can be 3 million base pairs, (0.1%), for perspective. 30 million (a factor of 10) doesn't seem like that much.

  3. Re:Chimps? by alva_edison · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well dog == wolf == dingo is true, they are all Canis lupus (C. lupus familiaris, C. lupus lupus, C. lupus dingo).

    Coyote and Jackal (and occassionally wolf) are used for other species within the Canis genus, so are closely related.

    Foxes are members of the same sub-family, but a different genus, so the least related among the bunch.

    Also Canis Lupus and Canis latrans are able to produce viable offspring, but the viability decreases across generations. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canis_lupus_X_Canis_latrans

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  4. Re:Bonobo Chimpanzee by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Informative

    So Chihuahuas and Great Danes are different species?

    No. They may be physically incompatible, but they are not genetically incompatible. If you inseminate a Great Dane with Chihuahua semen, it would have fertile puppies. Additionally, they could both interbreed with dogs of intermediate size. If A is the same species as B and B is the same species as C, then A is the same species as C.

  5. Re:Bonobo Chimpanzee by rthille · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not so. See "Ring Species"

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