Apes (Hominoidea)

 In front of you, you can see a gorilla and orangutan – representatives of hominids and anthropoid apes. They can be called blood relatives of a human as they have the same four blood groups, as we do. Go a little bit further moving on the right side of the showcase and you will see a stuffed chimpanzee, gray gibbon and common gibbon. These are also anthropoid apes. The largest anthropoid apes are gorillas, and gibbons are the smallest ones.

In the beginning of the 20th century English anatomist Arthur Keith compared anatomic features of a man and anthropoid apes. He defined one thousand sixty-five features in a human, three hundred and twelve of which were characteristic only for a human, one hundred seventeen features were common both for men and gibbons, three hundred fifty-four common for a man and orangutan, and three hundred eighty-five common for men and gorillas. And finally, three hundred and ninety-six features can be seen both in humans and chimpanzees. Modern DNA studies have shown that gene sequence of humans and chimpanzees differs only by one point three percent. Thus, chimpanzees have the greatest number of features similar to those of a human which confirms the hypothesis that men and chimpanzees have common ancestors.

But humans and chimpanzees also have many differences. Turn around and go to the mirror to the right of showcase number twenty-five.