Hairy Liaisons: Ancient Chimps and Bonobos Hooked Up

Chimpanzees and bonobos are two species separated by about 2 million years and one impassible river that divides their range. Chimps and bonobos split off from a common ancestor between 1.5 million and 2 million years ago, and the two species share about 99.6 percent of their DNA, making them close relatives. The finding echoes the recent discoveries that ancient humans sometimes interbred with their close relatives Neanderthals and Denisovans, said study co-author Christina Hvilsom, who studies