"What we are seeing is that the basic building blocks of all organisms were in place 500 million years ago when flies, worms and humans diverged," he said.

They estimated in this way that chimpanzees and humans diverged about 11 million years ago.

This was where the 'Dinis and humans diverged in their mutual war against the Hive World.

The comparison demonstrated that the same phenomenon of gene conversion appeared to be at work more than 5 million years ago, when humans and the non-human primates diverged from each other.

Humans and gorillas diverged 200,000 Grandfathers ago; humans and orangutans diverged 300,000 Grandfathers ago.

Next, chimps and humans diverged, and their joint louse diverged with them into Pediculus humanus and Pediculus schaeffi.

In the 1960's, he proposed that apes and humans had diverged from one another a mere 5 million years ago, rather than the 20 million figure that was then scientific orthodoxy.

According to the fossil and archeological record, humans and Neanderthals diverged at least 300,000 years ago.

So body lice were probably not in existence when humans and Neanderthals diverged some 250,000 or more years ago.

As early humans diverged from their chimpanzee-lineage, they also became omnivorous in order to maximize calorie intake, an important distinction in a nutrient-scarce environment.