Posted on 08/09/2017 1:54:20 PM PDT by Red Badger
* This may be the most intact primate fossil skull ever discovered. * The fossil comes from a little-known period of primate evolutionary history.
Source: Fred Spoor This is Alesi, the skull of the new extinct ape species Nyanzapithecus alesi (KNM-NP 59050).
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A group of scientists have found what may be the most intact fossilized primate skull ever discovered, and the find could shed light on the common evolutionary heritage shared by apes and humans.
The lemon-sized skull was discovered in Kenya by an international team of researchers, and was dated to the middle of the Miocene era, a little-understood time when many species of ape arose in Africa, including common ancestors of both modern apes and humans.
This skull could give scientists insights into what those common ancestors looked like.
The team reported its findings Wednesday in the journal Nature.
The fossil, belonging to the newly named species Nyanzapithecus alesi, bears some resemblance to those of modern-day gibbons, and possesses features that would only be found in apes, such as ape-like teeth. However, certain features distinguish it from modern gibbons, suggesting it was a very different type of animal.
"Gibbons are well known for their fast and acrobatic behavior in trees," said Fred Spoor of University College London and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in a press release. "But the inner ears of Alesi show that it would have had a much more cautious way of moving around."
The team used an extremely sensitive form of 3-D X-ray to peek inside the skull, revealing information that led them to conclude the skull belonged to an infant one to four months old when it died. Volcanic ash found around the fossil suggests it may have died during an eruption, but researchers cannot be sure.
Scientists estimate the Miocene period, which spanned from 25 million to 5 million years ago, produced more than 40 different species of hominoids — a term for a superfamily of primates that includes apes, humans, and related ancestral species.
It is extremely uncommon to find fossil primate skulls, especially those belonging to apes.
"Importantly, the African fossil record lacks any reasonably complete hominoid crania between 17 and 7 million years ago, and no cranial specimens are known at all from between 14 and 10 million years, greatly hampering the analysis of hominoid evolution," the researchers said in their study.
The study was sponsored by The Leakey Foundation and trustee Gordon Getty, the Foothill-De Anza Foundation, the Fulbright Scholars Program, the National Geographic Society, the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility and the Max Planck Society.
Scientists will need to study the skull further, but can already draw a few conclusions.
"What the discovery of Alesi shows," said lead author Isaiah Nengo, a professor of anthropology at De Anza College in California and Stony Brook University in New York, "is that this group was close to the origin of living apes and humans and that this origin was African."
Robert FerrisScience Reporter
They determined Helen Thomas' age by checking her driver's license.
I thought about these animals too, but I didn’t know the name.
Definitely looks nocturnal.
And how they know that’s 13 million years old? Was it stamped?
They mention volcanic ash associated with the strata in which the skull was found. There are a couple of very accurate radiometric procedures that are used in that situation. They are dating the volcanic ash surrounding the skull.
“including common ancestors of both modern apes and humans. “
Liberals: simpletons.
We look like apes because we both have arms and legs so we must be related and we came from apes. Maybe the apes came from us.
Yeah, the missing link climbed off a space ship.
They claim this was from 5-25 million years ago. Yeah,based on what history?
Pelosi? 13 million seems correct.
Fake science.
Similarities are far more than skin deep, they go down to our nearly identical DNAs.
Occam's Razor says the simplest explanation is we share common ancestors.
Of course, you may chose a different explanation, but it wouldn't be considered scientific.
“Occam’s Razor says the simplest explanation is we share common ancestors.”
That was a dumb statement. Sharing common ancestors doesn’t mean humans cam from apes as my comment mentions.
Reading comprehension isn’t your strength, is it?
“Of course, you may chose a different explanation, but it wouldn’t be considered scientific.”
ANYTHING I say is every bit as scientific as your opinion.
Sharing DNA does not require common ancestors. If you can’t think of another explanation or two, you’re as dumb as your comment.
Only 13 million years old? Ah come on.
Lemur, thought by some to be the beginning of the humans.
Surely, FRiend, you don't expect to win arguments with insults, do you?
"Humans cam from apes"?
Do we agree on what we mean by either "humans" or "apes"?
If by "apes" you mean large non-human primates alive today, then obviously, we did not come from them.
But if you extend your definition of "apes" to include some creatures represented in fossil records, then we could well have.
CodeToad: "ANYTHING I say is every bit as scientific as your opinion."
No, you're wrong on that because nothing you say is "scientific" unless you take it from a recognized scientific source, which obviously you didn't.
So of course, you're entitled to your own opinions, but not to call them "scientific" unless they genuinely are.
CodeToad: "Sharing DNA does not require common ancestors.
If you can’t think of another explanation or two, you’re as dumb as your comment."
Sure, I can think of many other possible explanations, but none -- zero, zip, nada -- of those other explanations meet standards set for a confirmed natural science theory.
Most of them fall into categories such as religion or unsupported-by-evidence fantasy.
No animal alive today, Lemur or otherwise, could possibly be ancestors of humans.
The question then is: did we have common ancestors?
Both theory and confirming evidence suggest we did.
That's how science works.
Note: this topic is from . Thanks Red Badger.
Big eyes, I keep falling for those big eyes...
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