for a Long time it was considered completely impossible, that land animals can cross on the way from one continent to another, even larger seas. At best, an “island hopping”, as in East Asia, and during the Cretaceous period in Europe-is possible for this type of spread of numerous fossil evidence. However, already in the 1980s, biologists came to the conclusion that at least two in South America indigenous groups of animals – the Guinea pig-like (Caviomorpha), and the new world monkeys (Platyrrhini) – not accepted, as before, across the Bering Strait into the New world could be infiltrated. Because their closest Relatives have only been found in Africa and on the Arabian Peninsula. “Both groups have to be Eocene from this Region, which required one or several TRANS-Atlantic Crossings,” explained Erik Seiffert, of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and his colleagues.
African monkeys in Peru
But now, researchers have studied the fossil and found evidence that a third group of land mammals must have made the dangerous journey across the Atlantic. The note for four around 23 to 34 million years old fossil teeth, the Seiffert and his Team on the banks of the Rio Yoruba, on the border of Peru and Brazil have found deliver. More detailed analyses of the dental characteristics showed that there were relics of a primeval new world monkeys, but appears to be an entirely new Primate. The paleontologists dubbed the ucayali pithecus perdita – Ucayali to the Fund area, pithecus is the primeval species of monkeys common ending and perdita is “lost”. “The teeth of the ucayali pithecus are Seiffert reports, of which the Platyrrhini radically different”, and his colleagues. Instead, the teeth of a surprisingly strong Resemblance to those of the Parapitheciden, an extinct Primate group, which seemed to be almost 50 to 25 million years ago in Egypt, showed.
but How can a pair of these from Africa and other countries well-known prehistoric monkeys to South America came from? From phylogenetic comparative analyses, the paleontologists conclude that the immediate ancestors of the ucayali pithecus have only around 35 million years ago from their African Relatives cleaved. “This Parapithecide provides us with the so far most convincing evidence for a phylogenetic connection between a fossil Mammal from South America, and an afro-Arab group of animals,” say the researchers. Even if the location of the teeth is, today, far from the coast and about 4,000 km from the easternmost point of South America, you must be the immediate ancestors of the ucayali pithecus directly from Africa to South America, so their conclusion.
On a raft made of plants
but This means that the prehistoric apes to have crossed the Atlantic. “This is an absolutely unique discovery,” says Seiffert. “It shows that in addition to the new world monkeys and Guinea pigs, this third stem line, the like of mammals somehow this incredible TRANS must have managed to transatlantic travel.” The ancestors of the ucayali pithecus would be only the third mammalian group, from such a Crossing of the Atlantic ocean, is known. On the Basis of their data, the scientists suspect that the brush monkeys, large primates began around 34 million years ago, this trip. In this time, at the Transition from the Eocene to the Oligocene, the Antarctic ice sheet began to grow straight and the sea level fell. As a result, the Atlantic was around 1500 to 2000 kilometers in width a little narrower than it is today – but for a land mammal still a huge barrier.
The researchers suspect that the small prehistoric apes share on a kind of raft made of plants floating the could have crossed the sea. May be a storm tore the Monkey at the time, along with Pflanzenfloß of the sea. Favorable currents and winds could have driven the unwilling sailors, then up to the coast of South America. The monkeys had to do this probably at least a few days without water and food. At the time of their arrival in the new homeland, then was asked again flexibility: The newcomers were forced to adapt to new food sources and a new environment. “The speaks for a high degree of flexibility in the behaviour of these monkeys,” conclude the scientists.
source: Erik Seiffert (University of Southern California, Los Angeles) et al., Science, doi: 10.1126/science.aba1135
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