If you have read the trilogy, you would realize that we are decended from the Golgafrincians, not apes. * The creatures that decended from apes died out shortly after the Golgafrincians landed on earth. They sent a ship filled with Marketing executives, telephone sanitizers, and hairdressers out, and pre-programmed the ship to crash land on earth. This is also where you find out that the ultimate Question to life, the universe and everything is "What do you get when you multiply Six by nine" I leave it to you to figure out how that equals forty-two.

*See " The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" chapters 23 – 33

no the golgafrinchians died out. the ape-men had the answer encoded in them (remember the scrabble game?)