The evolution of humans and their close relatives. (a) The closest living relatives of humans are chimpanzees and bonobos. The orangutan and gorilla lines branched off earlier. All of the lines shown are considered hominids. Estimated times of species divergence (in units of mya, million years ago, and kya, thousand years ago) are shown at the branch points. The evolutionary line leading to humans is in red. (b) The Hominid family diverged into Homininae and Ponginae (orangutans) subfamilies about 14 million years ago. The Homininae line later diverged into the Hominini (hominins) and Gorillini (gorillas) tribes. The hominins further split into lines leading to the Homo and Pan genuses about 6 to 7 million years ago. This figure provides some current details about the evolutionary paths in the hominin line leading to the Homo genus and eventually to humans.