Re: Orangs as Closest

Nate Edel (nate@croydon.dartmouth.edu)
6 Aug 1996 02:42:46 GMT

HARRY R. ERWIN (herwin@mason2.gmu.edu) wrote:
: I don't use the DNA data, but it seems to show that the trichotomy among
: Pan, Gorilla, and the hominids may have actually happened that way--i.e.,
: those two speciation events 7 MYr ago occurred almost simultaneously.
: Gorilla never pairs with the hominids in my data, but Pan tends to
: flip-flop.

I've seen Gorilla paired up, and will try to find the reference. It is
certainly a far less popular notion, however.

If you consider a few of the possible shared/derived characters of Pan and
Gorilla, it would seem likely to me that the split puts those two on one
branch and the hominids on the other. Definitely not a scientific assertion,
however...