Four fossilized monkey teeth discovered deep in the Peruvian Amazon have provided new evidence that various groups of ancient primates traveled across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa, according to new USC research recently published in the journal Science.
The teeth belong to a newly discovered species from an extinct family of African primates known as parapephids. The hypothesis is that these primates made a journey of more than 1,440 kilometers in floating rafts of vegetation that were separated from the shores, possibly during a storm.
The amazing finding shows that, in addition to the primates of America and a group of rodents known as caviomorphs, there is a third lineage of mammals that, in some way, was able to make this unlikely transatlantic journey to get from Africa to South America “.
Researchers have named the extinct primate Ucayalipithecus perdita . The name comes from Ucayali, the area of the Peruvian Amazon where the teeth were found, pithikos , the Greek word for primate, and perdita , the Latin word for lost. The Ucayalipithecus perdita would have been very small, similar in size to a modern marmoset.
The researchers believe that the site in Ucayali where the teeth were found is from a geological era known as the Oligocene, which spanned from about 34 million to 23 million years ago. Based on the age of the site and the proximity of Ucayalipithecus perdita to its fossil relatives from Egypt, the researchers estimate that the migration could have occurred about 34 million years ago.
As cited in the study: “This group could have reached South America around what we call the Eocene-Oligocene boundary , a period of time between two geological epochs, when the Antarctic ice sheet began to accumulate and sea level it decayed. ”That could have played a role in making it a bit easier for these primates to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Recall that the third and final phase of the defragmentation of Pangea definitely took place between 60 and 55 million years ago.
How do scientists know that this species has African ancestors?
A previous expedition to the Peruvian fossil site, in 2016, led to the discovery of two more teeth that belong to this new species. The resemblance of these additional lower teeth to Egyptian primate teeth confirmed to scientists that Ucayalipithecus perdita was a descendant of African ancestors.
The researchers do not fail to recognize the improbable and amazing nature of the results: “From the fact that they find a remote fossil site, where the chances of finding these pieces are extremely low; to the fact that we are revealing a highly unlikely journey these primates would have made. It’s all pretty amazing, ”in the words of Erik Seiffert, lead author of the study and professor of Integrative Anatomical Clinical Sciences at USC Keck School of Medicine.
Referencias:
‘A parapithecid stem anthropoid of African origin in the Paleogene of South America’
Erik R. Seiffert, Science, 10 Apr 2020: Vol. 368, Issue 6487, pp. 194-197, DOI: 10.1126/science.aba1135
