Part Man, Part Monkey

Ok...the sheep thing I kinda understand, but cheetah???

Human Ancestors May Have Interbred With Chimpanzees

By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 18, 2006; A01



When the ancestors of human beings and the ancestors of chimpanzees
parted ways 6.3 million years ago, it was probably a very long goodbye.
Some of their descendants may even have gone back for a final tryst.

That is the conclusion a group of scientists has reached, using a
comparison of the genes of humans and their closest animal relatives to
sketch a picture of human origins far more detailed than what fossil
bones have revealed.

According to the new theory, chimps and humans shared a common apelike
ancestor much more recently than was thought. Furthermore, when the two
emerging species split from each other, it was not a clean break. Some
members of the two groups seem to have interbred about 1.2 million
years after they first diverged -- before going their separate ways for
good.

If this theory proves correct, it will mean modern people are descended
from something akin to chimp-human hybrids. That is a new idea, and it
challenges the prevailing view that hybrids tend to die out.

It also strongly suggests that some of the oldest bones of
"proto-humans" -- including the 7 million-year-old Toumai skull
unearthed in Chad in 2001 -- may have belonged to a line of non-hybrids
that died out, and were not human ancestors at all.

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