About half a billion years ago most of the vertebrates on earth had tails, but migration from trees to a more land-based environment is believed to have hastened our tail loss.
Hundreds of thousands of years ago, ‘Gigantopithecus blacki’ roamed the forests of Southeast Asia, standing more than three metres tall and estimated to weigh around 270 kilograms.
Last week, a young American graduate student who was leading a tour at the Jane Goodall Institute Chimpanzee Eden, Nelspruit, was pulled into the chimps’ enclosure by two alpha males after entering a restricted area. He was brutally assaulted and suffered multiple injuries that left him in critical condition fighting for his life.