2022 Ancestor's Trail Hike
Tracing our common ancestry with all other multicellular life over the last billion years of evolutionary time. A 12.5k hike where each average stride = 60,000 years. =================
Pledge Sheet
Trail markers - CENOZOIC
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Chimpanzees & Bonobo apes6 mya we shared a common ancestor with these hominid apes who's African habitat is divided by the Congo river. They are our closest evolutionary cousins in the animal world and are deserving of legal personhood.
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Gorillas
7 mya we shared a common ancestry with these gentle, herbivorous forest giants whose habitat is severely threatened by human encroachment.
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Orangutans
14 mya we shared a common ancestry these "forest (hutan) people (orang)", the only surviving arboreal Ponginae which are confined to the rain forests of Borneo and Sumatra.
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Gibbons
18 mya we shared a common ancestry with these hylobatidae (non-hominid hominoid), asian tail-less lesser apes.
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Old World Monkeys
25 mya we shared a common ancestry with these catarrhini (downward facing nostrils) primates with grasping hands and feet (with the exception of humans).
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New World Monkeys
40 mya we shared a common ancestry with these platyrrhini (flat nosed with side facing nostrils) monkeys which include the only monkeys with prehensile tails.
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Tarsiers
58 mya we shared a common ancestry with these wide eyed, nocturnal haplorrhines (dry/simple nosed) which lack a tapetum lucidium common in other nocturnal animals.
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Lemurs & Bushbabies
63 mya we shared a common ancestor with these strepsirrhine primates that only survive on the island of Madagascar where they were stranded after the split up of Gondwana.
Trail markers - MESOZOIC
From 252 - 66 mya
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Colugos and tree shrews
70 mya we shared a common ancestry with these Euarchonta ("True Ancestors" of all primates and flying lemurs)
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Xenarthrans
95 mya in the late Cretaceous period, we shared a common ancestor with these "strange jointed" creatures which include anteaters, sloths and armadillos.