Panina is a subtribe of tribe Hominini; it comprises all descendants of the human-chimpanzee last common ancestor (LCA) that are not of the branch of human lineage—that is, all those ancestors of the type genus Pan (chimpanzees and bonobos). This split/divergence occurred around 8 to 6 million years ago (mya), which compares with a range of other estimates for this event—likely extended by periods of hybridization—of from 15 to 3 mya. Fossils from this subtribe are typically rare because they tend to live in environments with poor fossilization. Some of the earliest chimpanzee fossils are 500,000 years of age.
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Panina in the context of Human evolution
Homo sapiens is a distinct species of the hominid family of primates, which also includes all the great apes. Over their evolutionary history, humans gradually developed traits such as bipedalism, dexterity, and complex language, as well as interbreeding with other hominins (a tribe of the African hominid subfamily), indicating that human evolution was not linear but weblike. The study of the origins of humans involves several scientific disciplines, including physical and evolutionary anthropology, paleontology, and genetics; the field is also known by the terms anthropogeny, anthropogenesis, and anthropogony—with the latter two sometimes used to refer to the related subject of hominization.
Primates diverged from other mammals about 85 million years ago (mya), in the Late Cretaceous period, with their earliest fossils appearing over 55 mya, during the Paleocene. Primates produced successive clades leading to the ape superfamily, which gave rise to the hominid and the gibbon families; these diverged some 15–20 mya. African and Asian hominids (including orangutans) diverged about 14 mya. Hominins (including the Australopithecine and Panina subtribes) parted from the Gorillini tribe between 8 and 9 mya; Australopithecine (including the extinct biped ancestors of humans) separated from the Pan genus (containing chimpanzees and bonobos) 4–7 mya. The Homo genus is evidenced by the appearance of H. habilis over 2 mya, while anatomically modern humans emerged in Africa approximately 300,000 years ago.
Panina in the context of Homininae
The Homininae (/hɒmɪˈnaɪniː/; hominines) is a subfamily of the family Hominidae (hominids). The Homininae encompass humans, and are also called "African hominids" or "African apes". This subfamily includes two tribes, Hominini and Gorillini, both having extant (or living) species as well as extinct species.
Tribe Hominini includes: the extant genus Homo, which comprises only one extant species — modern human (Homo sapiens), and numerous extinct human species; and the extant genus Pan, which includes two extant species, chimpanzees and bonobos. Tribe Gorillini (gorillas) contains one extant genus, Gorilla, with two extant species, with variants, and one known extinct genus. Alternatively, the genus Pan is considered by some to belong, instead of to a subtribe Panina, to its own separate tribe, (so-called) "Panini," which would be a third tribe for Homininae.