In Lubbock, Texas, a fish has been caught that has teeth in its mouth that look like they should belong to a human. This discovery has area wildlife officials stumped. Fisherman Scott Curry actually caught the fist at Buffalo Springs Lake. The fished weighed in at 20 pounds. Curry immediately noticed that the fish had human-like teeth. The general manager of the lake stated that he had not seen anything similar to this fish in his 36 years working at the lake. The fish may be a pacu, which is native to South America. Lake officials will give $100 to anyone else who reels in a similar fish.
The evolutionary connection between humans and monkeys: Presently, it is known about the presence of absolutely identical blood groups in humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans: The "Human" group O and A were observed in chimpanzees. A, B and AB - in orangutans, A and B - in gorillas.
Conclusive evidence was obtained about the identity of these groups in humans and enlisted monkeys: the bold experiments of Troisier in the middle of the 20th century have proven safe blood transfusions (including groups) from chimpanzees to human beings. The possibility of such a procedure was proven earlier by Fridental. In this case, the similarities of anthropoids with humans is distinguished by a high degree of specificity: it is much more pronounced than the similarities of anthropoid monkeys and inferior monkeys.
Is the barrier unconquerable:
It is often heard that there exists one main difference between chimpanzee and humans - speech, which is present in humans.
No one, of course, can deny that : tens and hundreds of thousand of years of " colloquial practice" has given the humans a valuable gift such as articulate speech during the process of collective activity. Here, the gap between man and his nearest relative deepened further, which was proven by a series of experiments, carried out by two American researchers, the Gardner couple in mid 20th century and later by Penny Patterson, Jills and a number of other primatologists.
The findings of this research can be considered as one of the greatest discoveries of the century. The Gardner couple achieved great success in experiments on training sign language to the chimpanzee Washoe.
The chimpanzee quickly learnt 245 "word symbols" and later on started devising 10 new "words" per month on its own. Patterson conducted an experiment, in which the gorilla Koko learnt more than 600 symbols and kept devising new symbols.
One can communicate with apes just as we do with children of about 4 to 5 years of age. After learning a new language, the chimpanzees and gorillas communicated with each other and even taught this language to their younger ones. Allegedly, the position of the larynx seems to be the reason for the unconquerable barrier in the communication between man and ape: in monkeys, the larynx is located high, which obstructs in speech production during speech, but the brain is sufficiently developed in chimpanzees and gorillas for communicating with man, though, understandably, it has constraints - associated with several millions of years of independent evolution in various ecological niches in different directions.
Who are the ancestors?:
Therefore, Darwin's simian theory solved the question of the relationship between man and apes in the 20th century itself. Also, the results of the findings give evidence to the purely "terrestrial" nature of man, pointing out that the serious fundamental basis do not exist to search the ancestry of man beyond the limits of our planet.
It is indisputable now, that the chimpanzee, gorilla and orang-utan are our closest relatives. But, another important question needs to be addressed for the Darwinian theory of anthropogenesis to be completely correct. If evolution gradually led from ancient ape to man, then there should be some "intermediate" - "apeman". This was raised by E. Haeckel in the 19th century, who came up with the concept of the Pithecanthropus hypothesis; Dutch physician and biologist E. Dubois, argued a convinced Darwinist, who went in 1890 to Java Island to find the theoretically predicted creature. As it is known, he succeeded in finding a skull, femur bone and Pithecanthropus teeth (now, it is scientifically named Homo erectus - straightly walking human). |
