BEIJING: In the present age, old theories are being challenged. According to National Geographic, the one with the most far reaching effects is the new ray of birth of man which challenges Charles Darwain's Origin of the Species.

Darwin had created a ripple in he world of evolutionary science through his theory on the Survival of the Fittest, which till today remains debated. He propounded evolution of man by natural selection. It is the theory of origin, adaptation, complexity and diversity among the living creatures.

Today some people find it unacceptable despite the vast body of supporting evidence.

A 13 million years old ape living in what is now Spain may have been the last common father of all apes, including chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and humans.
 
The fossil gives us a missing link, not directly between humans and an apelike ancestor, but between great apes and lesser apes such as gibbons.

The great apes -- orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and humans -- are believed to have branched off from the lesser apes such as gibbons and siamangs about 11 million to 16 million years ago.

Humans branched off from chimpanzees an estimated 7 million years ago.
His name was Pierolapithecus catalaunicus and he had a stiff lower spine and flexible wrists, which showed that he was a tree-climbing specialist, the researchers write in this week's issue of the journal Science.

"This probably is very close to the last common ancestor of great apes and humans," said Salvador Moya-Sola of the Miguel Crusafont Institute of Paleontology in Barcelona, Spain, who led the study.