In the south of China, the remains of six unknown extinct primate species were found that lived there about 34 million years ago - after the transition from the Eocene to the Oligocene. Scientists are convinced that this finding will provide a deeper understanding of the evolution of primates and help to trace the climate change taking place today.
As Reuters writes with reference to the journal Science, scientists announced the discovery of the remains of six previously unknown extinct primate species. They were identified by fragments of jaws and teeth (as the researchers note, the durable enamel coating allowed them to survive for centuries). Four species are similar to the lemurs of Madagascar, one is a tarsier that lives on the islands of Indonesia and the Philippines and feeds on insects and lizards, and another is an ape-like primate.
Primates are among the most sensitive to environmental changes in mammals. The discovered species lived shortly after global climate change, which caused a colder and drier climate period, during which all primates disappeared in North America and Europe, and their numbers in Asia decreased significantly. The genus of primates, descended from apes and great apes, called anthropoids, originates in Asia (the age of the oldest discovered remains is estimated at 45 million years). After about 7 million years, some anthropoids migrated to Africa, where it is believed that humans appeared 200,000 years ago.
People, along with anthropoids, were prevented from appearing in Asia by a significant cooling that began 34 million years ago. This moment was decisive in the evolutionary history of primates, scientists say. Before the temperature dropped, anthropoids dominated among Asian primates, after - lemur-like primates, while ape-like ones were mostly exterminated.
Africa has been less affected by climate change, which has caused anthropoids to grow in size and diversity there. “If Asian anthropoids could not colonize Africa before the global cooling, we would definitely not be sitting here and discussing all this,” says paleontologist Christopher Beard. Similarly, if the Asian anthropoids had not suffered such great evolutionary losses, we would have originated from Asia, and not from Africa.
The only anthropoid found - a small ape-like primate called Bahinia banyueae - may resemble some modern South American monkeys, such as marmosets, he adds. Judging by the teeth, the primate's main food was insects and fruits.
