HUMAN ABO BLOOD GROUPS - ROOTS OF MANKIND
Human Blood Groups: Origins of the ABO System
Human Blood Types and Human Evolution

THE FACTS
CHIMPANZEES are blood group A, minimal O, never B.
GORILLAS are blood group B, minimal O, but never A.
The AB blood group is entirely missing - only HUMANS have it.

[NEW: ADDED in the year 2010:

As it turns out, the AB blood group is found in some other primate groups. This does not negate my basic hypothesis,
but suggests (?) that primates with these blood groups are later in time after the original constellation of A and B.

As written at
Evolution of Primate ABO Blood Group Genes and Their Homologous Genes1
by Naruya Saitou* and Fumi-ichiro Yamamoto,
*Laboratory of Evolutionary Genetics, National Institute of Genetics, Mishima, Japan; and The Burnham Institute, La Jolla, California:

"There are three common alleles (A, B, and 0) at the human ABO blood group locus. We compared nucleotide sequences of these alleles, and relatively large numbers of nucleotide differences were found among them. These differences correspond to the divergence time of at least a few million years, which is unusually large for a human allelic divergence under neutral evolution. We constructed phylogenetic networks of human and nonhuman primate ABO alleles, and at least three independent appearances of B alleles from the ancestral A form were observed. These results suggest that some kind of balancing selection may have been operating at the ABO locus. We also constructed phylogenetic trees of ABO and their evolutionarily related cw-1,3-galactosyltransferase genes, and the divergence time between these two gene families was estimated to be roughly 400 MYA.
.....
Table 5
The ABO Blood Groups in Nonhuman Primates (Adapted from Moor-Jankowski,
Wiener, and Rogers 1964)
Common Name Latin Binomena Observed Phenotypeb
Chimpanzee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pan troglodytes A (113), 0 (17)
Gorilla . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gorilla gorilla B (2)
Orangutan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pongo pygmaeus A (22), B (I), AB (3)
Gibbon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hylobates lar A (2), B (9, AB (4)
Baboons.................... Papio anubis, P. cyanocephalus A (36), B (17), AB (34)
Rhesus macaque . . . . . . . . . . . . . Macaca mulatta B (10)
Pigtailed macaque . . . . . . . . . . . . Macaca nemestrina B (5)
Java macaque................ Macaca irus A (8, B (I), AB (3), 0 (1)
Sulawesi crested macaque. C. . . . Macaca nigra A (7), B (2)
Squirrel monkey . . . . . . . . . . . . . Samimiri sciurea A (3), 0 (1)
Cebus monkey. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cebus albifrans B (3)9 0 (1)

a Names currently used in primate taxonomy are listed.
b Numbers in parentheses are observed numbers.
c Listed as “Celebes black ape” in Moor-Jankowski, Wiener, and Rogers (1964)."

End of the NEW Material.]

THE ABO STUDIES of the MAN-APES
Chimpanzees
28 separate studies showed that Chimpanzees
have the blood types A and minimal O, but never B.
Gorillas
8 separate studies showed that Gorillas
have the blood types B and minimal O, but never A.

There is NO blood type AB in either of the man-apes.
(See Jakob Schmitt, Immunbiologische Untersuchungen bei Primaten,
S. Karger, New York and Basel, 1968).
But man has both A and B AND blood type AB as well as very much O.

THE MN STUDIES of the MAN-APES

MN is a different blood antigen system than ABO. But the same analysis holds true for the MN blood type in man-apes and humans as for ABO. Man is both M and N or the combined MN blood type, whereas the Chimpanzees and Gorillas react exclusively to these types. (According to Schmitt, the reactions of Chimpanzees are 00.16 to Anti-M human mucous and 10.00 to Anti-N, whereas the figures for Gorillas are exactly the reverse, with 10.00 to Anti-M and 00.64 to Anti-N).

THE MN STUDIES of the MAN-APES

Since man - but not the man-apes - can also be the combination MN , M and N must have combined at some time in the past. So, is A + B = You and Me? Can we venture a genetic guess as to who Adam and Eve were?

Perhaps man developed on two separate lines from the man-apes or evolved from a combination of two primate lines [this idea was first presented on LexiLine]. The evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin may be disputed, but his basic conclusions are strongly supported by modern scientific studies. It is well known, for example, that the chromosomes of the man-apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, etc.) are very similar to those of man himself, differing in fact only very slightly, thus suggesting a genetic relationship. See Dorothy A. Miller, Science magazine, Vol. 198, p. 1116.

The study of (human) blood is called hematology. Equally as interesting as chromosomes are blood types, the so-called ABO alleles and the MN alleles. Most of us, for example, know our blood type in the ABO system as A-positive, A-negative, B-positive, B-negative, O-positive, O-negative, AB-positive, AB-negative. The positive or negative refer to the so-called Rhesus factor. Persons with blood type O are so-called universal donors, since they can give blood to anyone having any of the blood types A, B, O or AB. Persons with blood type AB on the other hand, can give blood only to persons with AB blood type. A person with blood type A can not give blood to a person with blood type B and vice versa. This means that an African with blood type A can give blood to a Scandinavian with blood type A, but a Scandinavian close relative with blood type B can not.

ABO BLOOD TYPE ORIGINS: AFRICA

Given the above facts, blood types AB and O seem to be a combination of A+A, A+B or B+B (AB as exclusive and O as inclusive) - whereas A and B themselves appear to be separate original groups. Only if the father and mother are "A AND B" or "B AND A" blood type can the child then be born with any of the human blood groups A, B, AB or O. This negates current theory that O is the original blood type, especially since the man-apes have little or no O blood type and no AB blood type at all.
A and B are very likely the originals. Chimp + Gorilla? The spot at which the territories of the chimps and gorillas meet is also the region of the oldest human skulls in Africa.