![]() “It is usually assumed that the trait responsible for a group’s success evolved when the group originated, but Alophia shows us this is not the case for Old World monkeys,” said Samuel Muteti, a researcher at the National Museums of Kenya. The researchers speculated that Alophia‘s primitive dentition was adapted to a diet that consisted of hard fruits, seeds and nuts, and not leaves, which are more efficiently processed by the more evolved dentition of fossil monkeys dating from after 19 million years ago. “How and when this unique dentition evolved is one of the unanswered questions in primate evolution,” said James Rossie, an anthropology professor at Stony Brook University. “You can think of the modern-day monkey molar as the uber food processor, able to slice, dice, mince and crush all sorts of foods,” said Mercedes Gutierrez, an anatomy professor at the University of Minnesota. Today, the configuration of cusps and lophs on the molar teeth enable them to process the wide range of plant and animal foods encountered in the diverse environments of Africa and Asia. The success of Old World monkeys appears to be closely tied to their unique dentition, researchers said. “But because of other dental features, we are able to convince them that yes, it is, in fact, a monkey.” ![]() It’s a pig,” said Ellen Miller, an anthropology professor at Wake Forest University. “These teeth are so primitive that when we first showed them to other scientists, they told us, “Oh no, that isn’t a monkey. The newly discovered monkey teeth are more primitive than geologically younger monkey fossils, lacking what researchers referred to as “lophs,” or a pair of molar crests, thus earning the new species its name, Alophia, meaning “without lophs.” While in the field, the team uncovered hundreds of mammal and reptile jaws, limbs and teeth ranging from 21 million to more than 24 million years old, including remains of early elephants. These ancient monkeys were living the good life.” “But millions of years ago, it was a forest and woodland landscape crisscrossed by rivers and streams. “Today, this region is very arid,” said Benson Kyongo, a collections manager at the National Museums of Kenya. Since the time interval from 19 to 25 million years ago is represented by a small number of African fossil sites, the team targeted the famous fossil-rich region of West Turkana to try to fill in that blank. This new monkey importantly reveals what happened during the group’s later evolution.” “Although the isolated tooth from Tanzania is important for documenting the earliest occurrence of monkeys, the next 6 million years of the group’s existence are one big blank. “For a group as highly successful as the monkeys of Africa and Asia, it would seem that scientists would have already figured out their evolutionary history,” said the study’s corresponding author John Kappelman, an anthropology and geology professor at The University of Texas at Austin. Photo copyright John Kappelman, used by permission. The finding also sheds light on how their diet may have changed the course of their evolution.Ī fossil mandible of the newly discovered ancient Old World monkey named Alophia. The discovery of 22-million-year-old fossilized monkey teeth – described as belonging to a new species, Alophia metios – fills a void between a previously discovered 19-million-year-old fossil tooth in Uganda and a 25-million-year-old fossil tooth found in Tanzania. and Kenyan scientists published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and funded in part by The Leakey Foundation. Photo copyright John Kappelman, used by permission.ĪUSTIN, Texas - The teeth of a new fossil monkey, unearthed in the badlands of northwest Kenya, help fill a 6-million-year void in the fossil record of Old World monkey evolution, according to a study by U.S. The truck and scientists at bottom right of center show the scale of this landscape. Sedimentary rocks exposed in the eroded badlands of Nakwai, Kenya, where the remains of a newly discovered ancient species of Old World monkey named Alophia was discovered.
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