Science - Ask a Geneticist?

I learned many new things while reading these websites. One thing that was shocking to me was that how simple organisms such as bacteria only have a single chromosome while more complex organisms such as humans have many chromosomes. I also learned a little bitabout the genes of chimpanzees and humans while reading this. I learned that chimpanzees have 48 chromosomes while us humans only have 46. Similar species have similar numbers of chromosomes. We used to have the same number of chromosomes as chimpanzees about 5 to 8 million years ago but as we evolved, our 2 chromosome combined. This was really interesting to me. Another fact that really shocked me was that the number of species you have does not determine the complexity of the species. For example, a goldfish has 94 chromosomes while we only have 46. We are definiely more complex then a goldfish. Another species that has more chromosomes than us is a type of fern. This fern is called an Ophioglossum Reticulatum and it has 1,260 chromosomes!!! We are also obviously more complex then a fern.

Sources: http://www.thetech.org/genetics/ask.php?id=69
http://www.thetech.org/genetics/ask.php?id=184