As it turns out, animals and fungi share a common ancestor and branched away from plants at some point about 1.1 billion years ago. It was only later that animals and fungi separated on the genealogical tree of life, making mushrooms more closely related to humans than plants.

Penelope wrote:As it turns out, animals and fungi share a common ancestor and branched away from plants at some point about 1.1 billion years ago. It was only later that animals and fungi separated on the genealogical tree of life, making mushrooms more closely related to humans than plants.

Thank you for clarifying this. I was scratching my head over the first one, since obviously animals move around, so mushrooms are like plants. Kind of a platypus case, I guess: it is possible to be a mammal even though you still do the egg-laying thing.

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Of course we did not evolve from primates. I don't know anyone who thinks we did. Darwin said man and apes share a common ancestor, not that one evolved from the other.

Litwitlou wrote:.
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Of course we did not evolve from primates. I don't know anyone who thinks we did. Darwin said man and apes share a common ancestor, not that one evolved from the other.

Still, the statement is true, and not only because we ourselves are primates.