System/
Period
Series/
Epoch
Stage/
Age
Age (Ma)
Quaternary Pleistocene Gelasian younger
Neogene Pliocene Piacenzian 2.58 3.600
Zanclean 3.600 5.333
Miocene Messinian 5.333 7.246
Tortonian 7.246 11.63
Serravallian 11.63 13.82
Langhian 13.82 15.97
Burdigalian 15.97 20.44
Aquitanian 20.44 23.03
Paleogene Oligocene Chattian older
Subdivision of the Neogene Period
according to the ICS, as of 2017[1]

The Late Miocene (also known as Upper Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene Epoch made up of two stages. The Tortonian and Messinian stages comprise the Late Miocene sub-epoch, which lasted from 11.63 Ma (million years ago) to 5.333 Ma.

The evolution of life edit

The gibbons (family Hylobatidae) and orangutans (genus Pongo) are the first groups to split from the line leading to the hominins, including humans, then gorillas (genus Gorilla), and finally chimpanzees and bonobos (genus Pan). The splitting date between hominin and chimpanzee lineages is placed by some between 4 and 8 million years ago, that is, during the Late Miocene.[2][3][4][5]

References edit

  1. ^ "ICS Timescale Chart". stratigraphy.org.
  2. ^ Dawkins, Richard (2004). The ancestor's tale : a pilgrimage to the dawn of evolution. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-618-00583-8. OCLC 56617123.
  3. ^ "Find Time of Divergence: Hominidae versus Hylobatidae". TimeTree. Archived from the original on 2015-04-18. Retrieved April 18, 2015.
  4. ^ Ruvolo, Maryellen (October 1997). "Genetic Diversity in Hominoid Primates". Annual Review of Anthropology. 26: 515–540. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.26.1.515. ISSN 0084-6570.
  5. ^ Ruvolo, Maryellen (March 1997). "Molecular Phylogeny of the Hominoids: Inferences from Multiple Independent DNA Sequence Data Sets". Molecular Biology and Evolution. 14 (3): 248–265. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a025761. ISSN 0737-4038. PMID 9066793.

External links edit