The Late Miocene (also known as Upper Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene Epoch made up of two stages. The Tortonian and Messinian stages comprise the Late Miocene sub-epoch.
The sub-epoch lasted from 11.608 ± 0.005 mya (million years ago) to 5.332 ± 0.005 Mya.
The evolution of life[]
The gibbons (family Hylobatidae) and orangutans (genus Pongo) are the first groups to split from the line leading to the hominins, including humans, then gorillas (genus Gorilla), and finally, chimpanzees and bonobos (genus Pan). The splitting date between hominin and chimpanzee lineages is placed by some between 4 and 8 million years ago, that is, during the Late Miocene.
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