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Related: About this forumMother of all apes—including humans—may have been surprisingly small
Mother of all apesincluding humansmay have been surprisingly small
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This ancient ape had the face and small body of a gibbon, but a relatively large brain.
Marta Palmero / Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP)
This ancient a
pe had the face and small body of a gibbon, but a relatively large brain.
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By Ann Gibbons 29 October 2015 2:00 pm
From sturdy chimpanzees to massive gorillas to humans themselves, the living great apes are all large-bodied, weighing between 30 and 180 kilograms. So for years most researchers thought the ancestral ape must have tipped the scales as well. But the partial skeleton of an 11.6-million-year-old primitive ape may force scientists to reimagine the ancestor of all living apes and humans. With a muzzle like a gibbon but a large brain for its body size, the ancient primate has traits that link it to all apes and humansyet it weighed only 4 kg to 5 kg, according to a report today in Science.
The ancient skeleton was found near Barcelona, Spain. If that seems strange, thats because a bewildering number of extinct apes once roamed far and wide across the forests of Europe, Asia, and Africa during the Miocene Epoch, 5 million to 23 million years ago. After the ancestors of apes and monkeys split into two groups roughly 25 million years ago, apes underwent a remarkable florescence, evolving into more than 30 different types. About 17 million years ago, these early apes diverged into two distinct groupsthe lesser apes, small-bodied, tree-living creatures represented today by gibbons and siamangs, and the great apes, which include chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutansand humans.
Until recently, most researchers assumed that the fossils of small Miocene apes were the ancestors of gibbons or extinct lineages of little primates, whereas the larger bodied fossil apes were the forebears of greater apes and humans. For decades, the small stuff was thought to be related to gibbons and the big stuff was thought to be related to great apes, says paleoanthropologist John Fleagle of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. And many researchers have thought that a large-bodied, 18-million-year-old ape called Proconsul from Kenya offered the best model for the ancestor of all apes.
This neat split is now being challenged by a strange new Miocene apePliobates cataloniae, named for the province of Catalonia in Spain. In January 2011, a team of paleontologists monitoring bulldozers excavating a landfill 50 kilometers northwest of Barcelona found 70 crucial pieces of an ancient primate skeleton: the cranium (the top of the skull), chunks of the upper jaw and muzzle, plus arm, hand, and hind bones, all buried in a layer of sediment reliably dated to 11.6 million years ago.
More:
http://news.sciencemag.org/evolution/2015/10/mother-all-apes-including-humans-may-have-been-surprisingly-small
trusty elf
(7,399 posts)[img][/img]
gregcrawford
(2,382 posts)... looks like "Presidentus Idioticus;" an evolutionary offshoot of Homo Erectus doomed to extinction. It could have achieved Sapiens status, but went AWOL instead.
trusty elf
(7,399 posts)Presidentus Idioticus sawed off the branch of the evolutionary tree upon which he was perched.
gregcrawford
(2,382 posts)... it was the tree that was falling right up to the point where he bounced.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)It was a shrub.
gregcrawford
(2,382 posts)trusty elf
(7,399 posts)Beartracks
(12,821 posts)====================
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Beartracks
(12,821 posts)hunter
(38,325 posts)I'd like to retire there.
fasttense
(17,301 posts)valerief
(53,235 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)mysuzuki2
(3,521 posts)It is in the October 30 issue of Science. I think it is a late surviving stem Catarrhine. It does not look like a crown group Hominoid to me at all. Translation - it looks like a surviving member of a lineage originating before the split between old world monkeys and apes rather than an ancestor of modern apes and humans. Just my impression.
TlalocW
(15,389 posts)My mom was pretty short.
Science.
TlalocW