Western Lowland Gorilla

Adding to the already-sequenced genomes of humans, chimpanzees and orangutans, researchers have completed the set of the great apes by sequencing the genes of a western lowland gorilla.The complete genome comes from a female western lowland gorilla named Kamilah, who was born in captivity and now lives at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. The researchers also sequenced parts of the genomes for two other western lowland gorillas and one eastern lowland gorilla. The results reveal more than ever about how the evolutionary tree connecting humans, chimps and gorillas was shaped."The gorilla genome is particularly important for our understanding of human evolution , because it tells us about this crucial time when we were diverging from our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees," study researcher Aylwyn Scally of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute said in a press conference about the findings on Tuesday (March 6).Family tiesThe results show that humans are closer to gorillas than we'd rea...

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