Gibbons — the small, long-armed tree swingers that inhabit the dense tropical forests of Southeast Asia — have become the last of the planet's apes to have their genetic secrets revealed.
"We now have whole genome sequences for all the great apes, and with this work, also the small apes — gibbons," said Jeffrey Rogers, a primate genetics researcher at the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
"This provides new information and insight into the history of the human genome, in evolutionary terms," added Rogers, who participated in the study, published in the journal Nature.