Scientists have unearthed remains of a primate that could have been ancestral not only to humans but to all great apes, including chimps and gorillas. Posted on 02/18/2007 11:40:54 PM PST by LibWhacker
Scientists have unearthed remains of a primate that could have been ancestral not only to humans but to all great apes, including chimps and gorillas.
The partial skeleton of this 13-million-year-old "missing link" was found by palaeontologists working at a dig site near Barcelona in Spain.
Details of the sensational discovery appear in Science magazine.
The new specimen was probably male, a fruit-eater and was slightly smaller than a chimpanzee, researchers say.
Palaeontologists were just getting started at the dig when a bulldozer churned up a tooth.
Further investigation yielded one of the most complete ape skeletons known from the Miocene Epoch (about 22 to 5.5 million years ago).
Salvador Moyà-Solà of the Miquel Crusafont Institute of Palaeontology in Barcelona and colleagues subsequently found parts of the skull, ribcage, spine, hands and feet, along with other bones.
They have assigned it to an entirely new genus and species: Pierolapithecus catalaunicus .
Monkey business
Great apes are thought - on the basis of genetic and other evidence - to have separated from another primate group known as the lesser apes some time between 11 and 16 million years ago (The lesser apes include gibbons and siamang).
It is fascinating, therefore, for a specimen like Pierolapithecus to turn up right in this window.
Scientists think the creature lived after the lesser apes went their own evolutionary way, but before the great apes began their own diversification into different forms such as orang-utans, gorillas, chimps and, of course, humans.
" Pierolapithecus probably is, or is very close to, the last common ancestor of great apes and humans," said Professor Moyà-Solà.
The new ape's ribcage, lower spine and wrist display signs of specialised climbing abilities that link it with modern great apes, say the researchers.
The overall orthograde - or upright - body design of this animal and modern-day great apes is thought to be an adaptation to vertical climbing and suspending the body from branches.
The Miocene ape fossil record is patchy; so finding such a complete fossil from this time period is unprecedented.
"It's very impressive because of its completeness," David Begun, professor of palaeoanthropology at the University of Toronto, Canada, told the BBC News website.
"I think the authors are right that it fills a gap between the first apes to arrive in Europe and the fossil apes that more closely resemble those living today."
Planet of the apes
Other scientists working on fossil apes were delighted by the discovery. But not all were convinced by the conclusions drawn by the Spanish researchers.
Professor Begun considers it unlikely that Pierolapithecus was ancestral to orang-utans.
"I haven't seen the original fossils. But there are four or five important features of the face, in particular, that seem to be closer to African apes," he explained.
"To me the possibility exists that it is already on the evolutionary line to African apes and humans."
Professor David Pilbeam, director of the Peadbody Museum in Cambridge, US, was even more sceptical about the relationship of Pierolapithecus to modern great apes: "To me it's a very long stretch to link this to any of the living apes," he told the BBC News website.
"I think it's unlikely that you would find relatives of the apes that live today in equatorial Africa and Asia up in Europe.
"But it's interesting in that it appears to show some adaptations towards having a trunk that's upright because it's suspending itself [from branches].
"It also has some features that show quadrupedal (four-legged) behaviour. Not quadrupedal in the way chimps or gorillas are, but more in the way that monkeys are - putting their fingers down flat," he explained.
During the Miocene, Earth really was the planet of the apes.
As many as 100 different ape species roamed the Old World, from France to China in Eurasia and from Kenya to Namibia in Africa.
Riiiiiiiight....you can call yourself an ape all day long.....doesn't make it so, I guess you can't handle "HUMAN"????
I was wondering when the Helen Thomas jokes would start. My mistake was searching for the words "Helen Thomas."
LOL! I thought it looked like Helen Thomas, too!
Takes all kinds.
OK...you're an ape if that makes you feel good.
We are apes. The new world has native monkeys, but no native apes, which probably means we originated somewhere in the old world where the rest of the native ape species are found.
Well said. Apes and Humans are different, That is why there is a missing link. Because the link doesn't exist. Apes are apes. Humans were created in the image of god.
>>Riiiiiiiight....you can call yourself an ape all day long.....doesn't make it so, I guess you can't handle "HUMAN"????<<
Its a way to classify species - its not a moral judgment. As I mentioned above, even to our closest match DNA wise - the Chimpanzee there are still 40 million DNA differences - that's enough to be in the same family but we're in a different genus and then a different species and subspecies.
You can spin that different ways depending on your outlook.
.....They had to call it a "missing link" to promote Darwinism......
They use the term because it is all they know to call it, and like style books that confuse cement with concrete, the use of missing link is mandatory.
I really don't care what I am classified as....I KNOW what I am.....a child of GOD, made in his image and likeness.
How about? We found a new skelton. It's hominid. It doesn't match anything else we've found so far but it closely resmebles ______. We're investigating it further to see where it would best fit in the classification system.
If the genetics of living organisms were wildly different, no doubt that would be used as evidence against creation/ID also, with the reaoning that *If the designer were so intelligent, why would he make things so different? It's not efficient. It doesn't make sense.*
Heads I win, tails you lose.
"Some of the "missing links" may never be known - nobody saw you - maybe you were alone. "
Yeah, that's the point. You don't really know if two fossils are related without all of the links in between.
How do you know two things are related if there are huge gaps in between? The answer is that you can't know for certain, but we are told by archaeologists all the time that one animal is descended from another -- without sufficient evidence.
It's all based on assumptions and suppositions. Apparently as long as I can imagine something a certain way that's all the data that's needed.
If our ancestors were apes, why are apes still around?
There never was a genetic link between Humans and apes. The DNA research shows no resemblance what so ever.
Therefore;
Humans are humans.
Apes are still apes. That's the difference.
The classic argument of the epistemophobic.
Perhaps its the lighting, but the eye sockets don't seem to match. Must be interesting to deal with these ultimate 3D puzzles.
It pretty much does. The word 'ape' is just a sign or a symbol. It has whatever meaning we assign it. Right now, the scientific consensus is that the word 'ape' means 'the hominoids,' which includes humans. It has nothing to do with gods, morality, or metaphysics -- it's just a word used to describe several species.
If you want, you can dismiss that definition as scientific jargon unsuitable for vulgar conversation. But I think it is very suitable for this thread.
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