Test: Origin & Evolution of Man - Grade 12 MCQ

Hominoidae is the super family of man. Man belong to the family Hominidae. The order of man is Primates and class is Mammalia.

The first scientific name of man was given by Carolus Linnaeus. He called them Homo sapiens wiseman. He added wiseman to the name as it was the only organism with high brain capacity.

Origin of man was explained in Huxley’s book called “The man’s place in nature”. It shows the connection of man with nature and how he adapted to survive in nature.

Charles Darwin wrote the book “The descent of man”. In his book, he mainly focusses on the ancestry of man and how man originated into its current form. He talks about the development of man and also the different races within man.

They originated 80 – 100 million years ago. They belong to palaeocene epoch of coenozoic era. Primates originated from elephant shrews but they were not real primates.

Tree shrews were the first real primates originated in palaeocene epoch. They have two pairs of mammary glands, V-shaped jaw, shorter snout. Claws are absent and nails present on digits.

Prosimians and Anthropoids are two sub orders of primates. Humans, apes and monkeys belong to Anthropoids whereas Lemur, loris and tarsiers belong to Prosimians.

Rhesus also known as Macaca belongs to old world monkeys. They belong to Africa and Asia. They are characterized by a narrow flat nose with downward direction of nostril.

Spider monkey and marmosets belongs to the new world monkeys. The new world monkey evolved from South and Middle America. They are characterized by a protruding nose with upward direction of nostril.

Monkey is not among the classification of apes, whereas it belongs to Anthropoids. Chimpanzee, gorilla, and orangutan belong to the classification of apes.

Chimpanzee is closely related to man. DNA content and DNA matching are the same in both. This similarity is more than 99% with chimpanzee whereas 94% with a gibbon.

Based on organic evolution, Sinanthropus is closely related to man. It was the former genus name given to some hominids, which were found in China in 1926. It was the old Peking man.

Gibbon belongs to the family Hyalobatideae who has a cranial capacity of 100 c.c. Whereas, chimpanzee, gorilla, and orangutan belong to the family Pongideae. Their cranial capacity varied from 400-500 c.c.

Smaller head, less cranial capacity is not a similarity between man and apes. Actually, they had a larger head and more cranial capacity. The remaining options share similarities between man and apes.

Number of chromosomes are approximately the same in man and apes. Apes have 48 whereas man has 46 number of chromosomes.

Banding pattern on chromosome number 3 and 6 of human and chimpanzee is 100% similar. Since DNA content and matching is almost 99% with the chimpanzee. This shows that humans evolved from chimpanzees.

Apes have a less cranial capacity of only 650 c.c. whereas humans have a more cranial capacity of about 1300- 1600 c.c. Humans developed higher cranial capacity and had advanced brain than apes.

Apes had a U-shaped jaw. They had a narrow flat nose with the downward direction of the nostril. Whereas, elephant and tree shrews had V-shaped jaw.

Human evolution or anthropogenesis is part of biological evolution which studies the emergence of Homo sapiens sapiens. They were the distinct species from other hominids, great apes and placental mammals.

Origin and evolution of Propliopithecus were in an Oligocene epoch so-called as Oligocene apes. They originated about 30-35 million years ago. Origin of man started from Propliopithecus and diverged to many other species.