Posted on 05/18/2013 3:37:01 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The oldest known fossils of an ape and a monkey have been uncovered, providing an intriguing glimpse of a crucial time in primate evolution.
The discoveries suggest that by 25 million years ago, two major groups of primates were distinct: one that today includes apes and humans and another that encompasses Old World monkeys such as baboons and macaques. Previous studies using living primates’ DNA suggested that ancient apes and Old World monkeys parted from a common ancestor between 25 million and 30 million years ago.
The new ape and monkey fossils, from Tanzania’s Rukwa Rift Basin, suggest that the evolutionary split between these primate lines must have occurred close to 30 million years ago, or perhaps even earlier, anthropologist Nancy Stevens of Ohio University in Athens and her colleagues conclude in the May 15 Nature...
Her team assigns a tooth-bearing lower right jaw to a new ape genus and species, Rukwapithecus fleaglei. The scientists classify a second find, a jaw fragment containing a tooth, as a new monkey genus and species, Nsungwepithecus gunnelli.
These animals lived 25.2 million years ago, based on age estimates of volcanic ash layers that sandwiched the Tanzanian fossils.
Rukwapithecus may not be a new ape genus, though. The newly discovered jaw appears to belong to Rangwapithecus, an ape genus previously known from East African fossils dating to around 17 million years ago, says anthropologist K. Christopher Beard of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
LONG-GONE PRIMATES Using new fossils and previously recovered remains of related creatures, an artist created portraits of an ape (left) and a monkey (right) that inhabited East Africa 25 million years ago. Mauricio Antón
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Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a prosimian of wealth and taste.
I been around for a long long time.
That's probably where we come in ~ way back there ~ and due to happenstance and design changes we lost our first article constructs ~ now some think we're just modified chimps rather than quite possibly modified monkeys.
I'm voting for the monkeys. That's based on my experience with the internet ~ people toss poo all over the place ~ definitely monkey-like behavior!
we are all over the cyberjungle
I’m hoping octopi and squid rise to take our place. They have surprising intelligence and amazing manipulative dexterity.
-Beck
Obama points to an ape-lizard reconnection.
No pics of Michelle Obama yet? Freepers are slacking off.
If you want real intense poo flinging, you're better off looking toward the hippo family:
Excellent~
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3021147/posts ~ wherein is announced that Ardi’s hips had a combo of hominid and monkey design features. What I said ~
LOL
When the newest next, makes the dna jump- well then, that’ll be an insight. Until then,... “fare thee well...”
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