I just wrote … would be less than 50% more distant…

Actually I forgot to measure the smaller segment. It’s more like 55, maybe 60%.

But the head scratching remains.

It seems to mean that, if 2+2=4 and that program works fine (and there are no errors in the sequences), N-1 is almost as distant from us as chimps, what goes against everything we think we know about Homo sp. and specially about our close cousins the Neanderthals.

It makes little sense. I’d check for any posible input error first of all.

If there are no such errors… then is it a discovery or just a misunderstanding?

The gorilla is now slightly more closer than the orangutan, but Neandertal-1 now is more dissimilar than Neandertal-2.

That’s pretty interesting. I wonder if that means something or is just “noise” introduced by the small sample. I can just assume that humans, chimps, etc. are not just points either but that they are distributed by some small range. Still the distance between both neanders seems pretty large. N-1 is almost twice as distant from the split with sapiens as his cousin N-2.

It looks as if they had a large genetic diversity and also as if N-2 would be more “archaic” and N-1 more “evolved”. Are they from very different dates? Or maybe geographies? (I think I know which are the two specimens but too tired to search for them now).

It cannot mean hybridation in any case, because that would not affect the mtDNA at all.

Thanks for you comment. You raise some valid points that I overlooked, I’ve taken out the ‘extra’ sequences in the orangutan sample and updated the sample sequences as well as the image. The gorilla is now slightly more closer than the orangutan, but Neandertal-1 now is more dissimilar than Neandertal-2.

Kambiz