Word: aping
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...there's now only one species of human on the planet, and in the simplified view of evolution most of us have, that's all there has ever been. A few million years ago, most of us think, the half-ape known as Lucy appeared in Africa; eventually she begat a less apelike creature, who evolved in turn into something even more humanlike. Finally, after a few more begettings, Homo sapiens appeared. Except for that odd side branch known as the Neanderthals, the path from proto-apes to modern humans is commonly seen as a succession of new and improved...
While all the answers won't be in for some time, experts have identified several key transitions in our evolutionary chronicle. The first, which happened around the time we diverged from the apes, between 6 million and 4 million years ago, was the development of bipedalism--two-legged walking rather than the kind of locomotion Tarzan learned from his adoptive ape family...
...recently as five years ago, all that scientists could really tell about our earliest ancestors was when they first appeared. Molecular biologists had measured the differences between human and chimpanzee DNA, then averaged the rate of genetic change over time. By calculating backward, they determined that great apes and hominids branched from a common ancestor between 6 million and 4 million years ago. But no fossils were on hand to support this scenario. The oldest hominid species known, Australopithecus afarensis (southern ape of the Afar), could be dated back only 3.6 million years. Its most famous member, Lucy, unearthed...
...than those of A. afarensis: smaller molars, larger canines and thinner tooth enamel, suggesting a diet rich in easy-to-chew fruits and vegetables. The new species, says paleontologist Tim White of the University of California at Berkeley, a co-leader of the expedition, "is way closer to an ape than to an australopithecine and is significantly different from any other hominid...
...Tarzan is determined to "be the best ape ever." Frustrated that he can't growl exactly like his ape friends, he is advised by Kala to "just come up with your own sound." He does, and he likes it. The Tarzan yell is a shout of young maturity, of his interspecies uniqueness. But later, when he falls in love with Jane yet feels obliged to stay with his ape family to protect them, the yell carries a wrenching pathos. It is the primal scream of someone who doesn't know if he's man or monkey...