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."

Comments

Re:Bonobo Chimpanzee

[i kan reed]

Assuming you're not trolling here:

There's morphic phenotypes that are different, for one. Bonobos are actually a lot smaller than chimps as mature adults. They are also much less able to solve complex puzzles, a difference that persists even when raised in complete separation of others from their own species. There's also the biological definition of species that requires that they be able to interbreed, we have never seen that happen.

Re:uninteresting consequence of the decimal system

[SpeZek]

We're related to just about every living thing on this planet that has a face. I think that's pretty mind blowing.

Nope. We're related to every living thing on this planet full stop .

After all, we all share the same ancestor if you go back far enough.