Why are orangutans so similar to humans, but there is a big gap?

Among primates other than humans, chimpanzees have the smallest difference from humans. After comparing the genomes of humans and chimpanzees, the researchers found that the similarity between them reached 98.8%, and most of the sequencing regions of their genomes were almost the same. The "evolutionary clock" between humans and chimpanzees is also very slow, which researchers believe may be caused by the evolution of humans and chimpanzees in the last million years.

The researchers speculate that the difference in the operation of the "evolutionary clock" shows the difference in the differentiation time of primates. Elango, the first author of the paper and Georgia Institute of Technology, thinks that in the evolutionary history of primates, the ancestors of human beings and chimpanzees may be the first to "separate" from the ancestors of orangutans and gorillas, which leads to the "evolutionary clock" of human beings and chimpanzees slowing down, and then human beings and chimpanzees differentiate again.