Mysterious
"ghost apes" may have interbred with the great apes known as bonobos
just as modern humans repeatedly had sex with now-extinct human lineages, a new
study finds.
Bonobos
are, with chimpanzees, humanity's
closest living relatives. Together, bonobos and chimps are part of
the group Pan, just as modern humans and extinct lineages of humans make
up the group Homo.
Recently,
geneticists discovered that ancestors of modern humans often interbred with
extinct human lineages such as Neanderthals and Denisovans.
The DNA from
such trysts continues to influence modern humans, from
potential immune boosts to increased risk for depression, obesity, heart
attacks and nicotine addiction. [In
Photos: Bones from a Denisovan-Neanderthal Hybrid]
Previous
research suggested that bonobos and chimps may have interbred as well. For
example, prior work found genes
likely flowed from bonobos to chimpanzees more than 200,000 years ago.
By
analyzing the genomes from 10 bonobos and 59 chimpanzeess for signs of genes
from unknown ancient groups, scientists have now uncovered evidence that
bonobos also had sex with a now-extinct ape lineage.
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