• Question: how are apes human but other animals aren't?

    Asked by to Juan on 18 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Juan Carlos Lopez-Baez

      Juan Carlos Lopez-Baez answered on 18 Mar 2014:

      Hello @jimbobs

      I think you might be getting a bit confused here 🙂 Humans are apes, apes are not human. Humans are apes because we have very similar characteristics in common with other animals that are in the same family as us (for example, chimpanzees and gorillas). Two things that mainly distinguish apes from other primates (primates includes us, chimpanzees and gorillas, monkeys and even lemurs) are our higher intelligence and our lack of tail. Additionally, we have a very high percentage of similarity in our DNA (that is the information inside our cells that make us the way we are).

      Other animals are not apes because all animals are classified according to their similarities, both the obvious ones (for example, do you have legs or fins?) to the not so obvious ones (for example, the types of teeth that different animals have)

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