The subtle topography of tiny teeth and jawbones enabled identification of two new anthropoid ancestors that lived 37 million years ago.
Posted on 10/14/2005 3:27:55 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
New species firmly establish African roots for anthropoid line.
The fossil teeth and jawbones of two new species of tiny monkey-like creatures that lived 37 million years ago have been sifted from ancient sediments in the Egyptian desert, researchers have reported. Related
They said their findings firmly establish that the common ancestor of living anthropoids -- including monkeys, apes and humans -- arose in Africa and that the group had already begun branching into many species by that time. Also, they said, one of the creatures appears to have been nocturnal, the first example of a nocturnal early anthropoid.
The researchers published their discovery of the two new species -- named Biretia fayumensis and Biretia megalopsis -- in an article in the October 14, 2005, issue of the journal Science. First author on the paper was Erik Seiffert of the University of Oxford and Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Other co-authors were [lotta names here, see original article].
The researchers discovered the fossils over the course of the last few years at a site called Birket Qarun Locality 2 (BQ-2) about 60 miles southwest of Cairo in the Fayum desert. BQ-2 has only been systematically excavated for about four years, said Seiffert, in contrast to a much younger Fayum site, called L-41, which has been explored for the last 22 years by Simons and his colleagues.
“BQ-2 and surrounding localities have tremendous potential, which is exciting because they are so much older than other Fayum sites,” said Seiffert. “There will certainly be much more information about early anthropoid evolution coming out of BQ-2 over the next few years.” The sediments at BQ-2 lie nearly 750 feet below those of L-41 and were dated at around 37 million years old by measuring telltale variations in magnetic fields in the sediments due to ancient fluctuations in the earth’s magnetic fields. According to Simons, other anthropoids exist at BQ-2 and will soon be described, [that's how the paragraph ends, folks!]
The latest fossils of the new species consist of tiny teeth and jaws, whose shapes yield critical clues about the species whose mouths they once occupied. For example, a tooth root from the species Biretia megalopsis is truncated, indicating that it had to make room for the larger eyesocket of a nocturnal animal.
“These finds seem to indicate that Biretia megalopsis must have had very large eyes, and so was likely nocturnal,” said Seiffert. “This has never been documented in an early anthropoid. The simplest explanation is that Biretia's nocturnality represents an evolutionary reversal from a diurnal ancestor, but that conclusion is based solely on the probable pattern of relationships. If down the road we find out that our phylogeny was wrong, Biretia could end up being very significant for our understanding of the origin of anthropoid activity patterns.”
According to Simons, analyses of the teeth of the two species clearly place them as members of a group called parapithecoids, known as “stem” anthropoids because they constitute the species of early creatures from which the subsequent "crown" anthropoid line arose.
“The finding of these parapithecoids from such an ancient time confirms that crown anthropoids -- a group including all modern anthropoids -- have their earliest known beginnings in Africa,” said Simons. “They show that findings by other researchers of isolated examples of possible higher primate fossils in Asia do not constitute evidence of an ancestral crown anthropoid lineage there.”
According to Seiffert, the latest findings help fill in the gap between later anthropoids and the oldest undisputed anthropoid, called Algeripithecus, found in Algeria, which lived around 45 million years ago. That species had been characterized by only a few teeth, which precluded significant insight into the species, said Seiffert.
Seiffert also noted that previously, the only evidence for anthropoids at 37 million years ago in Africa was a single tooth, attributed to a species called Biretia piveteaui. What’s more, the latest discoveries of the two species suggest that a 57-million-year-old African primate called Altiatlasius from Morocco might even be the earliest anthropoid ancestor.
For more information, contact: Dennis Meredith, Office of News & Communications | (919) 681-8054 | dennis.meredith@duke.edu
Well said. Thanks for taking the time.
You must be one of those 'glass half empty' people. One gap has been closed, true, but two more, albeit smaller, gaps have been created. Remember, we will never run out of gaps as long as we believe.
No more than is appropriate. Look, if you want to spend your life affecting false modesty, believing that every lame-brained statement anyone vomits forth from his lips is a precious gem, valuable and worthy of respect, regardless of whether it is true, accurate and insightful or not that is your business. For me, if someone volunteers to be a stupid fool, I see no reason to pretend he is anything but that which he volunteers to be.
Well said. Have a cookie at Darwin Central.
Why? Because we are intelligent enough to take what we see in extant organisms and apply that consistency of morphology to fossils? Why would something that reliably applies to today's organisms not apply equally to extinct organisms?
Was there some point in the past where the morphological relationship between features and functions changed drastically? When would that have been? During some time period or event that has no physical evidence?
Or were you just barking at the moon?
Your tagline says it all. Have fun.
Well it's been a while, but I remember at the end of the Cosmos series he stated that no one looking at the wonders of the universe could doubt the existense of a higher being (can't remember the exact words). Maybe it's time to watch the show again.
There is an easy fix - open that closed mind of yours, shake out the creationist cobwebs and learn how scientists determine where fossils fit in the hierarchy, rather than assuming nothing can be reliably learned from partial fossils.
Why, thank you.
You are so much more succesful in doing that, why fix something that is not broken?
"True" and "literal" aren't really the same thing although some people try to use them interchangably to try to trap people. The Bible is true; but it is not always literal. Poetry is poetry, parables are parables (espicailly when told by the writer that it's a parable) When God says He will cover us with His wings, it doesn't mean He's a chicken. Then ever someone says that they recognize these parts as figurative, they're then accused of picking and choosing what to believe, in an attempt to cast doubt on the person's crediblity. If they say they belive it's all literal, they're mocked as being stupid. If they try to explain the difference, they're accused of semantics. There is nothing that a Christian can do or say that is right for some people.
"It just reinforces that the Bible cannot be counted on to answer questions of specific fact, especially in such things as the age of the earth."
I agree that the Bible doesn't seem to address the age of the Earth, although from the things that I read in the Bible, it seems as if the Earth is very old and in this case, it agrees with science. No problem there.
One of the big issues that comes up in crevo threads is the age of the Earth. Creationists are forever being accused of being YEC and therefore twisting science to fit their agenda. Not all creationists believe in the young Earth. That was calculated by a man using presupmtions of certain Bible passages. It should not be taken literally because it is not Scripture, it is only based somewhat on Scripture in that he used the Bible to make his calculations. Here is a case where a *religious* belief is clearly wrong but it doesn't invalidate the Bible. There is too much room for human error there and it should be tossed for that reason alone.
All great apes descended from lower life forms.
Humans descended from lower life forms.
Therefore, humans are great apes.
Why don't you answer the questions?
Cats and elephants also descended from lower life forms, so can't we say that we're cats and elephants, too? Logic would say:
All great apes descended from lower life forms.
Humans descended from apes.
Therefore humans descended from lower life forms.
The Bible has many contradictions and errors. That does not render it useless, IMHO. It just means that people make mistakes. Whether the mistakes were made because the writers were incapable of comprehending what God was telling them, or because the translation was in error, or because a book was included in the Bible when it should not have been, or whatever, does not make it useless.
If we can observe certain evidence that contradicts the Bible it does not mean that God does not exist. That would be a logical fallacy. It does not mean that the Bible was not inspired by God. It just means that sometime in the past men made mistakes. That is the way that I look at it. I do not have any problem with this.
Yes you just keep meandering through life believing whatever nonsense based on a belief system that could as well have been the Sanskrit of India or cuneiform of the ancient Sumerians in Mesopotamia, or the Aztec or Olmec who liked to sacrifice thousands of humans on their pyramid altars. I see know difference.
As I have no time to answer anymore. If you feel the need to have the last word, go ahead, it won't be answered
Yes, cats and elephants ;-)
Don't worry. For every gap closed with the finding of a fossil, two gaps are created. ;)
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