Science, which works among other things in the search for the pieces of the puzzle that complete the understanding of human evolution, has found three links in the primate family that were unknown to us until now. Specifically, it is about three species of primates, found in San Diego, California, and that lived in this area when it was a lush forest, between 42 and 46 million years ago.
A shocking and exciting discovery, made by biologists at the University of Texas at Austin, which reveals more information about how primates evolved and completes the map of the relatives of the human species.
This is not the first time primate fossils have been found in San Diego County. Since the 1930s, many of them have been discovered in the sandstones and clay stones that make up the ‘Friars’ formation.
The new work picks up on the important collection that paleontologist Stephen Walsh and field workers at the San Diego Natural History Museum (SDNHM) collected before his death in 2007.
These findings double the number of known primate genera represented in the ‘Friars’ formation and further increase the total number of known omomyoid primates from that period from 15 to 18.
So are the three species discovered
The three new species have been named Ekwiiyemakius walshi, Gunnelltarsius randalli, and Brontomomys cerutti.
Ekwiiyemakius walshi , the smallest of the three new species, weighed between 113 and 125 grams. Its name means “behind the clouds”, due to the location of the headwaters of the San Diego and Sweetwater rivers.
Gunnelltarsius randalli weighed between 275 and 303 grams, about the size of today’s fat-tailed dwarf lemur.
Brontomomys cerutti , meanwhile, was large compared to most other primates and was estimated to weigh between 719 and 796 grams, roughly the size of a live sporting lemur. Due to its large size, its name derives from the Greek word brontē , or “thunder.”
Imagen: /Randwolf. Universidad de Texas.
Más información: Amy L. Atwater, E. Christopher Kirk. ‘New middle Eocene omomyines (Primates, Haplorhini) from San Diego County, California’. Journal of Human Evolution. (2018).
