Posted on 12/09/2019 10:05:11 AM PST by blam
Tree-dwelling apes in Europe strode upright around 5 million years before members of the human evolutionary family hit the ground walking in Africa.
That’s the implication of fossils from a previously unknown ape that lived in what’s now Germany about 11.6 million years ago, say paleontologist Madelaine Böhme of the University of Tübingen in Germany and her colleagues. But the relation, if any, of these finds to the evolution of a two-legged stride in hominids by perhaps 6 million years ago is hazy (SN: 9/11/04).
Excavations in a section of a Bavarian clay pit produced 37 fossils from the ancient ape, dubbed Danuvius guggenmosi by the investigators. Bones from the most complete of four individuals represented by the new finds cover about 15 percent of that creature’s skeleton, including nearly complete specimens from the forearm and lower leg, Böhme’s team reports online November 6 in Nature. Earlier research had generated age estimates for fossil-bearing sediment in the German pit.
Danuvius’ limbs, spine and body proportions indicate that it could hang from branches, like present-day orangutans and gibbons, as well as walk on two legs slowly, somewhat like hominids that originated in Africa roughly 6 million to 7 million years ago, the researchers say. No other fossil or living ape has moved in trees and on the ground precisely as Danuvius did, they conclude. An ape built like Danuvius likely served as a common ancestor of great apes and hominids that emerged roughly 7 million years ago or more, Böhme contends.
If true, Danuvius’ body design would upend the long-standing idea that hominids evolved an upright stance after splitting from a common knuckle-walking, chimplike ancestor in Africa. The new finds also challenge an argument that hominids evolved from ancient apes built much like modern orangutans, which walk upright
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(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
“If they lived in trees, why did they need to walk upright?”
Climate change.
No, really.
One theory says that as the African climate dried out, groves of trees grew farther and farther apart, so the hominids that could walk best from one to another tree had a better chance to survive.
MY THEORY:
The hominids that could RUN FASTEST from one to another tree had a better chance to survive...............
https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/204669/12-top-american-comics-with-nazis
“a previously unknown ape that lived in what’s now Germany “
Any other apes live in Germany, or, is this strictly comparison of the unknown with contemporaneous known apes from Africa?
I remember seeing something on one of the History Channel’s pseudo-science shows where the reported that Stalin had sponsored an effort to genetically create ape (gorilla I think !)-human hybrids to be super soldiers.
Did anyone watch the premiere of the last season of Vikings? ....Kievan Rus (800-99 AD roughly) doing hot air ballooning before the Montgolfier brothers! .. Really ?
You are quibbling in demonstration of your lack of understanding of science. All scientific theories are hypotheses awaiting falsification. Even the solidest of scientific theories can turn out to be false or incomplete, the general result of which they are either modified or discarded for a more general theory that covers the new evidence.
[singing] what's need got to do, got to do, with it...
You didn’t have to outrun the lion, just the other apes who were also trying to escape.
BS
In past times, I visited a CEO who had an etching and pretty much that statement framed on his wall.
Big hooters!
Who is the guy on the right; he looks familiar...
:^) We'll put the FBI on the case...
I’m tired of space aliens blaming monkeys for everything.
It’s an old joke.
Ever seen the documentary Ancient Aliens Debunked? Although, AA is still good for laughs.
I did not see that. Any historic truth to it?
I find no evidence for it.
If true don’t you think the Russians would have bragged about it?
Is this about the time giraffes stretch their necks so they could reach the tree leafs?
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