Distant Cousin Ape

Though he is often unjustly accused of it, Darwin never maintained that man is descended from creatures like modern apes or monkeys. He thought that both men and apes came from some unknown common ancestor in the remote past. People who have objected to being too closely related to the apes got new words of comfort last week from Britain.

In the current Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, Anatomist W. E. Le Gros Clark of Oxford adds new details to his theory that fossil primates (Proconsuls) found in Kenya show more manlike than apelike characteristics. They have no "simian shelf" (bony reinforcing) in the lower jaws, and their limbs suggest that they did not swing through the trees. Such ape traits were probably developed by specialization later than Proconsul's time.

Since the several species of Proconsul lived in the Lower Miocene period (25 million years ago, halfway back to the dinosaurs), it looks as if man has had no near ape-cousins to worry about for at least that long.

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