Human, Chimp Ancestors May Have Mated, DNA Suggests

[Orstio]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/humans-chimps.html

Early human ancestors and chimpanzee ancestors may have mated and produced offspring, according to a new DNA study.

The study suggests that the human and chimp lineages initially split off from a single ape species about ten million years ago. Later, early chimps and early human ancestors may have begun interbreeding, creating hybrids—and complicating and prolonging the evolutionary separation of the two lineages.

[Astronuc]

I read that!  I'm trying to think of an appropriate comment. 

I'll have to read the details, but I have to wonder how they figured this out given how long ago this happened.

[Orstio]

I think it makes things like the appearance and extinction of the Australopithicene (sp?) more logical.  It also explains why chimpanzees' DNA is so close to our own, while species that should be closer (e.g. Neandertal) have far greater differences in DNA.

[Retrospector]

There are really so many possibilities when you consider the likelihood that there may have been more than one species of Australopithicus existing at the same time at points during our evolutionary history. That may also have been true for the genus ancestral to chimpanzees. Some may have interbred, some may not have. It's a big puzzle, and we'll never have all the pieces in trying to reconstruct the picture.