Free Republic

Dr Moya-Sola with colleagues discovered the fossil specimen of Pierolapithecus in Spain in 2002. They estimated that the hominid lived about 11.9 million years ago, arguing that it could be the last common ancestor of modern great apes: chimpanzees, orangutans, bonobos, gorillas and humans... the shape of the specimen’s pelvis indicates that Pierolapithecus lived near the beginning of the great ape evolution, after the lesser apes had started to develop separately but before the great ape species began to diversify... “The ilium – the largest bone in the pelvis – of the Pierolapithecus is wider than that of Proconsul nyanzae,...

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...