Homo

Summary

Homo is a genus of great ape that emerged from the early hominin genus Australopithecus, encompassing a single extant species, Homo sapiens, along with a number of extinct species classified as either ancestral or closely related to modern humans, collectively called archaic humans. Homo, together with the genus Paranthropus, is probably most closely related to the species Australopithecus africanus within Australopithecus. The closest living relatives of Homo are of the hominin genus Pan, with the ancestors of Pan and Homo estimated to have diverged around 5.7–11 million years ago during the Late Miocene.