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Homo (from Latin homō 'human') is a genus of great ape (family Hominidae) that emerged from the genus Australopithecus and encompasses only a single extant species, Homo sapiens (modern humans), along with a number of extinct species (collectively called archaic humans) classified as either ancestral or closely related to modern humans; these include Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis.
Gray also supplied Hominini as the name of the tribe including both chimpanzees (genus Pan) and humans (genus Homo). The discovery of the first extinct archaic human species from the fossil record dates to the mid 19th century: Homo neanderthalensis, classified in 1864. Since then, a number of other archaic species have been named, but there is ...
Humans (Homo sapiens, meaning 'thinking man' or 'wise man') or modern humans (sometimes Homo sapiens sapiens) are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus Homo and the broader Australopithecine. They are great apes characterized by their hairlessness, bipedalism, and high intelligence.
The name Homo of the biological genus to which humans belong is Latin for 'human'. [e] It was chosen originally by Carl Linnaeus in his classification system. [f] The English word human is from the Latin humanus, the adjectival form of homo. The Latin homo derives from the Indo-European root * dhghem, or 'earth'. [220]
The Hominidae (/ h ɒ ˈ m ɪ n ɪ d iː /), whose members are known as the great apes [note 1] or hominids (/ ˈ h ɒ m ɪ n ɪ d z /), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: Pongo (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); Gorilla (the eastern and western gorilla); Pan (the chimpanzee and the bonobo); and Homo, of which only modern humans ...
Most DNA studies find that humans and Pan are 99% identical, [19] [20] but one study found only 94% commonality, with some of the difference occurring in non-coding DNA. [21] It is most likely that the australopithecines, dating from 4.4 to 3 Mya, evolved into the earliest members of genus Homo .
The genus Pan is part of the subfamily Homininae, to which humans also belong. The lineages of chimpanzees [ dubious – discuss ] and humans separated in a process of speciation between roughly five to twelve million years ago, [ 25 ] making them humanity's closest living relative. [ 26 ]
Homininae (the hominines), is a subfamily of the family Hominidae (hominids). (The Homininae— / h ɒ m ɪ ˈ n aɪ n iː / —encompass humans, and are also called "African hominids" or "African apes".) [1] [2] This subfamily includes two tribes, Hominini and Gorillini, both having extant (or living) species as well as extinct species.