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How are humans and modern apes related through evolution?

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A vertical geologic time scale chart spanning from 650 million years ago to the present, with colored bands for each era and period. Illustrations and labels highlight key evolutionary events such as the appearance of skeletal elements, first fishes, land plants, amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs, mammals, and humans. — evolution The geologic time scale from 650 million years ago to the present, showing major evolutionary events.

Humans did not evolve from modern apes; rather, humans and modern apes share a common ancestor that lived about 6 to 7 million years ago. Apes are tailless primates belonging to the superfamily Hominoidea, which includes gibbons, chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, gorillas, and humans. While humans are zoologically categorized as apes, they are often placed in their own subcategories due to larger brain size, advanced cognitive abilities, and bipedal locomotion.12

The evolutionary journey from this common ancestor to modern humans involved several stages, including genera like Australopithecus, Homo habilis, and Homo erectus. Genetic analysis, particularly DNA sequencing, strongly supports the close relationship between humans and chimpanzees, with their genomes being approximately 99% identical. This genetic evidence, combined with the fossil record, indicates that Homo sapiens evolved in Africa and subsequently migrated across the globe.34