what animal did humans evolve from

Humans did not evolve from monkeys or any other primate living today. Instead, humans share a common ancestor with modern African apes, like gorillas and chimpanzees, that existed 5 to 8 million years ago. Since then, there have been at least a dozen different species of human-like creatures, many of which are close relatives but not human ancestors. Most of these hominid species went extinct without giving rise to other species, but some of the extinct hominids known today are almost certainly direct ancestors of Homo sapiens. According to the recent African origin of modern humans theory, modern humans evolved in Africa possibly from H. heidelbergensis, H. rhodesiensis or H. antecessor and migrated out of the continent some 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, gradually replacing local populations of H. erectus, Denisova hominins, H. floresiensis, H. luzonensis and H. neanderthalensis.