Great Uncle Fred, where did the first monkey come from? (A.N.Other, Autumn 2008)

Unless we are taking the Bible literally, and even the Bible does not take the Bible literally (or else there would be no wife for Adam & Eve`s son Cain to marry), we might as well go along with the current view that the Earth is about four-and-a-half billion years old. And there has been life on our planet for at least three-and-a-half billion years. The first monkey derives, you could say, from this earliest life but, to be more precise, the primate family (to which monkeys and humans belong) only came into being - so it is thought - about 60 million years ago, after the extinction of the dinosaurs. The first actual monkey, an ancestor of yours and mine and Princess Anne, is thought to have evolved about 35.4 million years ago. We all jogged along together from that point until about 18 million years ago when the gibbons broke off to form their own species and 12 million years ago when the orang utans went their own way. Then, between eight and four million years ago, first the gorillas and then the chimpanzees split off from the line leading to the craziest monkey of them all, the bridge-building, bomb-making, musical master of mayhem and love, the irrepressible great ape known as the human. Much of this, you understand, is conjecture. The Bible might not be literally true but do not suppose that evertything that scientists say is literally true. Often it is not. But I hope that begins to answer your question, Mr or Ms Other.

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