Editing Most recent common ancestor (section)

==MRCA of different species==
{{further|Chimpanzee–human last common ancestor|Last universal common ancestor|Phylogenetic tree|Tree of life (biology)}}
{{PhylomapA|size=300px|caption=[[Phylogenetic tree|Evolutionary tree]] showing the divergence of modern species from the [[last universal ancestor]] in the center.<ref name=Ciccarelli>{{cite journal |last1=Ciccarelli |first1=Francesca D. |last2=Doerks |first2=Tobias |last3=von Mering |first3=Christian |last4=Creevey |first4=Christopher J. |last5=Snel |first5=Berend |last6=Bork |first6=Peer |title=Toward Automatic Reconstruction of a Highly Resolved Tree of Life |journal=Science |date=3 March 2006 |volume=311 |issue=5765 |pages=1283–1287 |doi=10.1126/science.1123061 |pmid=16513982 |bibcode=2006Sci...311.1283C |citeseerx=10.1.1.381.9514 |s2cid=1615592 }}</ref> The three [[Domain (biology)|domains]] are colored, with [[bacteria]] blue, [[archaea]] green, and [[eukaryote]]s red.}}
The project of a complete description of the phylogenetic relationships among all biological species is dubbed the "[[Tree of life (biology)|tree of life]]". This involves inference of ages of divergence for all hypothesized [[clades]]; for example, the MRCA of all [[Carnivora]] ([[cat]]s, [[dog]]s, etc.) is estimated to have diverged some 42 million years ago ([[Miacidae]]).<ref name="Eizirik, E. 2010">{{cite journal |last1=Eizirik |first1=Eduardo |last2=Murphy |first2=William J. |last3=Koepfli |first3=Klaus-Peter |last4=Johnson |first4=Warren E. |last5=Dragoo |first5=Jerry W. |last6=Wayne |first6=Robert K. |last7=O’Brien |first7=Stephen J. |title=Pattern and timing of diversification of the mammalian order Carnivora inferred from multiple nuclear gene sequences |journal=Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution |date=July 2010 |volume=56 |issue=1 |pages=49–63 |doi=10.1016/j.ympev.2010.01.033 |pmid=20138220|pmc=7034395 |bibcode=2010MolPE..56...49E }}</ref>

The concept of the last common ancestor from the perspective of [[human evolution]] is described for a popular audience in ''[[The Ancestor's Tale]]'' by [[Richard Dawkins]]. Dawkins lists "concestors" of the [[Timeline of human evolution|human lineage]] in order of increasing age, including [[Chimpanzee–human last common ancestor|hominin]] (human{{ndash}}[[chimpanzee]]), [[Homininae|hominine]] (human{{ndash}}[[gorilla]]), [[hominid]] (human{{ndash}}[[orangutan]]), [[Gibbon–human last common ancestor|hominoid]] (human{{ndash}}[[gibbon]]), and so on in 40 stages in total, down to the last universal common ancestor (human{{ndash}}[[bacteria]]).