Evolutionary Trees

• • Evolutionary trees are diagrams that show the relationship between species over evolutionary time
  • A new branch in the tree shows where speciation has occurred (when a new species has evolved)
• • In the evolutionary tree below, for example:
  • Chimpanzees and bonobos share a recent common ancestor. Chimpanzees are therefore most similar to bonobos (more similar than they are to any other primate species)
  • Humans share a more recent common ancestor with gorillas than they do with orangutans – this means we are more closely related to gorillas than we are to orangutans
  • All five primate species shown here share a common ancestor (from the distant past)

  
• • Evolutionary trees are created using current classification data for living organisms (such as DNA analysis and structural similarities) and fossil data for extinct organisms