Why do primates still exist and not evolve into humans?

When we started talking about evolution, one of the first things we thought about was that humans evolved from gibbons, chimpanzees and monkeys. In other words, we are the current descendants of monkeys.

Throughout the history of life, there have been many species of organisms evolving from one species to completely replace the original species. For example, birds are the current descendants of dinosaurs, some types of toads, butterflies etc. Similarly, humans evolved from chimpanzees over millions of years.

So the question is: if we evolved from apes, why do they still exist until now? Aren't humans supposed to completely replace monkeys and chimpanzees?

To answer that question, we need to dig deeper into the basic knowledge of human evolution with the following two things:

We are not really evolving from monkeys

Even if everyone thinks the wise people evolved from monkeys, in fact, this is not true or at least, not entirely true because it depends on how people perceive the word "monkey".

Humans and monkeys now evolved from the same extinct ancestor from about 25 million years ago. This evolutionary relationship is strongly reinforced by DNA analysis and fossil literature.

One study showed that the wise and Rhesus monkeys all owned nearly 93% of the DNA of this ancestral species. Based on differences and similarities between the two types of DNA, the researchers estimated that Rhesus monkeys and humans had separated from common ancestors millions of years ago.

Humans and monkeys now evolved from the same extinct ancestor from about 25 million years ago.

Interestingly, in general, human ancestors and monkeys now (together with gibbons and chimpanzees) are a primate !

More specifically, humans have not evolved from the gibbons and chimpanzees that exist today; instead, humans and monkeys (ie gibbons, chimpanzees and other primates) are like siblings and their parents.

The following section will explain more clearly the relationship between humans and monkeys at the present time.

Humans and monkeys are relatives

Suppose that a monkey has two children, named Dave and Scott.

Dave is a regular monkey, while Scott is a smart monkey, or at least, much smarter than a normal monkey.

Both Dave and Scott are mature and married. Dave is married to a normal female monkey, while Scott is married to a smarter female monkey than a normal species. Dave has a normal baby monkey, while Scott has a clever baby monkey. This keeps repeating for generations, leading to the production of many ancestors of intelligent monkeys and numerous ancestors of common monkeys.

The differences in intelligence of these two species became more and more apparent until these two species no longer shared the same origin. In other words, ordinary monkeys are still called "monkeys", and intelligent monkeys become a completely different species and are given a different name .

The most interesting thing about this evolutionary process is that, without food, the two animals must compete, smart monkeys will be smarter than regular monkeys , leading to the normal monkey being gradually extinction.

However, if these two species do not have to compete with the same food source or are not short of food sources, then the two species can coexist with isolated strains, in which a more intelligent animal the other.

This is exactly what happened to humans and chimpanzees: humans are intelligent monkeys and chimpanzees are common ones.

Question "If humans evolved from monkeys, why do monkeys still exist?" Similar to the question "If you are a descendant of your grandfather, why do you still have cousins ​​living around you?".

In short, the species of the same ancestors in the past can coexist, like humans and monkeys. From an evolutionary perspective, monkeys are our cousins, so we should get used to the "family tree" of mankind and learn about it as much as possible.

• Human evolution has ended
• Video: The journey of 550 million years of human evolution over 60 seconds