You are the newest link in a chain that has never broken.

Your DNA is a combination that has never existed before and will never exist again: half from each parent, reshuffled. But every piece of it was handed down, unbroken, from the beginning of life.

The oldest known fossils of our species, from Jebel Irhoud in Morocco, are about 300,000 years old. That is roughly 12,000 generations of parents and children, every one of whom made it.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 12,000 human-length generations^*

Source

Hublin et al. 2017, Nature 546:289

Where your genome and a chimpanzee’s can be lined up, they differ in only about 1.2% of single DNA letters.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 260,000 human-length generations^*

Range

6.2–6.8 million years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Pan troglodytes (NCBI 9598); Chimpanzee Sequencing Consortium 2005, Nature 437:69

The branches split so close together that about 15% of your genome is more similar to the gorilla’s than to the chimpanzee’s.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 350,000 human-length generations^*

Range

8.3–9.2 million years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Gorilla gorilla (NCBI 9593); Scally et al. 2012, Nature 483:169

Young orangutans stay with their mothers for about seven or eight years, one of the longest childhoods of any animal besides us.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 620,000 human-length generations^*

Range

14.9–16.4 million years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Pongo abelii (NCBI 9601)

You share their full three-colour vision. It arose when an opsin gene was duplicated in your shared ancestors, making red and green distinguishable.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 1,200,000 human-length generations^*

Range

28–30 million years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Macaca mulatta (NCBI 9544)

Their ancestors crossed from Africa to South America around 40 million years ago, most likely drifting on rafts of floating vegetation.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 1,700,000 human-length generations^*

Range

41–44 million years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Callithrix jacchus (NCBI 9483)

Each of a tarsier’s eyes is about as large as its entire brain. Your shared ancestor lived just after the asteroid ended the age of dinosaurs.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 2,600,000 human-length generations^*

Range

62–68 million years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Carlito syrichta (NCBI 1868482)

This ancestor lived while the last dinosaurs still walked the Earth: a small, tree-climbing primate that survived the asteroid impact.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 2,900,000 human-length generations^*

Range

69–74 million years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Lemur catta (NCBI 9447)

The protein-coding parts of mouse and human genes are on average about 85% identical, which is why mice are central to medical research.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 3,300,000 human-length generations^*

Range

80–87 million years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Mus musculus (NCBI 10090)

Whales belong to this branch. Their ancestors walked on land and returned to the sea about 50 million years ago.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 3,600,000 human-length generations^*

Range

86–93 million years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Felis catus (NCBI 9685)

An elephant’s closest living relatives include sea-dwelling manatees and rabbit-sized hyraxes.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 3,900,000 human-length generations^*

Range

93–102 million years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Loxodonta africana (NCBI 9785)

A newborn kangaroo is about the size of a jelly bean. It crawls into its mother’s pouch and keeps growing there for months.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 6,400,000 human-length generations^*

Range

152–166 million years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Monodelphis domestica (NCBI 13616)

The platypus lays eggs, yet feeds its young with milk: a glimpse of how the earliest mammals may have raised their young.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 7,200,000 human-length generations^*

Range

168–194 million years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Ornithorhynchus anatinus (NCBI 9258)

Your shared ancestor laid eggs with protective membranes, the amniotic egg. It freed reproduction from water and let your ancestors conquer dry land. Birds are living dinosaurs.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 13,000,000 human-length generations^*

Range

317–321 million years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Gallus gallus (NCBI 9031)

Here your line had four limbs and was moving onto land. Most frogs still return to water to lay their eggs.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 14,000,000 human-length generations^*

Range

349–355 million years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Xenopus laevis (NCBI 8355)

Lungfish breathe air and have lobed fins with bones inside. The bones of your arm are built on that same plan.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 16,000,000 human-length generations^*

Range

393–412 million years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Protopterus annectens (NCBI 7888)

About half of all vertebrate species alive today are ray-finned fish.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 17,000,000 human-length generations^*

Range

428–442 million years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Danio rerio (NCBI 7955)

Your ancestor here already had jaws, an invention every jawed animal, including you, inherited. Sharks were swimming long before the first trees grew.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 19,000,000 human-length generations^*

Range

447–479 million years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Carcharodon carcharias (NCBI 13397)

Lampreys have no jaws, like the earliest vertebrates. With them, your line shares a backbone-bearing body plan and a skull.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 23,000,000 human-length generations^*

Range

515–611 million years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Petromyzon marinus (NCBI 7757)

Sea squirt larvae swim like tadpoles with a stiff rod along their back, a notochord. You had one too, as an embryo.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 24,000,000 human-length generations^*

Range

550–652 million years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Ciona intestinalis (NCBI 7719)

Like you, they develop "mouth second": in the early embryo, the first opening becomes the anus, not the mouth.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 25,000,000 human-length generations^*

Range

591–663 million years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Asterias rubens (NCBI 7604)

The Hox genes that lay out your body from head to tail are shared with the fruit fly. Some human Hox genes still work when placed in a fly.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 29,000,000 human-length generations^*

Range

646–797 million years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Drosophila melanogaster (NCBI 7227)

Sponges have no nerves, muscles or organs, yet they are animals: your distant cousins at the base of the animal family tree.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 30,000,000 human-length generations^*

Range

699–802 million years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Amphimedon queenslandica (NCBI 400682)

A mushroom is a closer relative of yours than it is of any plant.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 49,000,000 human-length generations^*

Range

1.11–1.32 billion years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Saccharomyces cerevisiae (NCBI 4932)

You and every plant are built from complex cells with a nucleus. Inside them are mitochondria, descendants of bacteria taken in by an ancient ancestor.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 58,000,000 human-length generations^*

Range

1.23–1.68 billion years

Source

TimeTree 5: Homo sapiens vs Arabidopsis thaliana (NCBI 3702)

Every living thing on Earth, including bacteria, oak trees, whales and you, descends from this population of cells. They stored their instructions in DNA, written in the same genetic code your cells use today.

≈ {n} human-length generations

≈ 170,000,000 human-length generations^*

Range

4.09–4.33 billion years

Source

Moody et al. 2024, Nature Ecology & Evolution 8:1654