Phylogenetic Relationships within and among Gorillas, Chimps, & Humans
This is a Neighbor Joining (NJ)
tree of distances over 15,447bp of the mitochondrial DNA
coding region, for two pairs of Gorillas & Chimps,
one Neandertal, and three Anatomically Modern Humans
(AMH) assigned to haplogroups L1, A,
and U [African, First Nations, and European]. Note
the similarity to a coalescent tree with recent
origination of variation: branches (edges) within groups are
much shorter than those among groups. The tree confirms the
"Three-Taxon statement," that Humans and Chimps are more
closely related to each other than either is to Gorillas.
Figure © 2007 after SMC Flynn & SM Carr; Text material © 2024 by Steven M. Carr
For Allan C. Wilson (1934 - 1991), who saw it first.