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TIMELINE NATURE|Vol 437|1 September 2005

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1641 Is this a chimp I seebefore me?Nicolaas Tulp, a Dutchanatomist, is the first formally to describe anape, although it is notclear from historicalrecords whether his subject was achimpanzee, a bonoboor an orang-utan.

1699More than skin deepEdward Tyson, an Englishphysician, publishes his account of the firstconfirmed dissection of a chimpanzee. He echoesremarks made by Tulp,pointing out that chimpanatomy is remarkablysimilar to our own.

1739A true likenessFrench artist Louis Gérard Scotin draws a chimp —possibly the first one imported live into Europe.

1775 Going underground?The species name troglodytes is coined by JohannFriedrich Blumenbach, a German anthropologist. Itis derived from the name for an African race of cavedwellers — perhaps mythical — from the middleages. Why he chose this name remains unclear.

1816 From god to genusGerman naturalist Lorenz Oken is the first to use Panas the name for the genus to which chimpanzeesbelong — named after the hairy, Greek rural god.

1863

Order, order!Humans should be placed in the same order asapes, argues Thomas Henry Huxley.

1871

The Descent of ManIn his follow-up to On the Origin of Species, CharlesDarwin suggests that humans are most closelyrelated to African great apes.

1917 No problemGerman psychologist Wolfgang Köhler describeshow captive chimpanzees solve problems, usingboxes and sticks to retrieve bananas hanging fromropes in their enclosures. 5 MILLION TO 7 MILLION YEARS AGO

Origin of speciesThe last common ancestor of humans andchimpanzees is believed to have walked on fourlegs. The oldest fossils that resemble bipedalhumans are 6 million–7 million years old, althoughDNA sequence analyses suggest the two lineagesseparated about 5 million years ago.

1 MILLION TO 2 MILLION YEARS AGO

Double the funThe chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) diverges fromthe lineage leading to the bonobo (Pan paniscus),or pygmy chimpanzee.

A brief history of chimpsAs our closest living relative,the chimpanzee holds a unique fascination forresearchers fromanthropologists togeneticists. Here, we chartthe history of mankind’srelationship with the chimp,culminating in this week’slandmark genomicachievement.

1961Space shotThe four-year-old chimpanzee Ham is the firstchimpanzee in space, experiencing more thansix minutes of weightlessness and movinglevers in response to flashing lights.

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© 2005 Nature Publishing Group

NATURE|Vol 437|1 September 2005 TIMELINE

1964

Chimp technologyJane Goodall, in a study published in Nature, showsthat wild chimpanzees make and use tools. Shewatches them fashion twigs into implements tocatch termites.

1967Close cousinsVincent Sarich and Allan Wilson argue in Sciencethat African great apes are our closest relatives,based on studies of blood proteins. They find thatantibodies against human proteins cross-reactbest with chimpanzee and gorilla proteins.

1970

Hello, handsomeChimpanzees are shown to recognize themselvesin mirrors, which Gordon Gallup interprets asevidence of a level of self-awareness. Subsequentresearch has demonstrated ‘mirror self-recognition’ in bonobos, gorillas and orang-utans,but not in other primates.

1978 When in Mahale…William McGrew and Caroline Tutin are the first todescribe a ‘social custom’ among the chimpanzeesof Mahale, Tanzania. They perform a ‘groominghand-clasp’ — behaviour absent at Gombe, only100 kilometres away.

1984 Pairing upCharles Sibley and Jon Ahlquist study how easilyDNA strands of humans and chimpanzees form‘complementary’ pairs. The experiments suggestthat the two species’ genomes are 98.4% similar.

1997 Let’s get startedEdwin McConkey and Morris Goodman make thefirst published call to compare the genomes ofchimpanzees and humans, in what they call theHuman Genome Evolution Project.

1998Vive le difference!In the first detailed study on genetic differences —as opposed to similarities — between humans and chimpanzees, Ajit Varki’s team shows thatpart of the gene for CMP-sialic acid hydroxylase is missing in humans, but not in chimpanzees. The enzyme converts one form of a cell-surfacemolecule into another.

FEBRUARY 2002 Making the caseWhite papers are submitted to the US NationalHuman Genome Research Institute (NHGRI)arguing for the chimpanzee genome to besequenced.

MAY 2002 The starting gunSequencing the chimpanzee genome is declared a priority by the NHGRI.

OCTOBER 2002 Not so similarRoy Britten is the first to include deletions andinsertions when comparing the genomes ofhumans and chimpanzees. He argues that the twospecies share 95% of their DNA, less than wasthought, although the figure remains controversial.

DECEMBER 2003 First draftThe NHGRI announces an initial aligned draftsequence of the chimpanzee genome.

MAY 2004One down...A Japanese consortium publishes in Nature thesequence of chimpanzee chromosome 22, thecounterpart to human chromosome 21.

SEPTEMBER 2005 The chimp genomeA draft sequence ofthe chimpanzeegenome ispublished in thisissue of Nature.

AUGUST 2002 Speaking in tonguesSvante Pääbo’s group reports in Nature thatFOXP2, a gene important in speech articulationand other linguistic skills, is different inchimpanzees and humans.

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1978Pass the bananaSue Savage-Rumbaugh and hercolleagues publish a study inScience on abstractcommunication skills: twochimpanzees learn symbols anduse them to request food fromone another.

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