New great ape fossil - November 14, 2007
A new species of great ape may have been discovered in Kenya. A 10 million year old jawbone and 11 teeth have been recovered from Nakalipithecus nakayamai, which seems to be a new species very close to the last common ancestor of gorillas and humans.
“Based on this particular discovery, we can comfortably say we are approaching the point at which we can pin down the so-called missing link,” said Frederick Manthi, of the National Museums of Kenya (Reuters, Kenya Broadcasting Corp.). He’s right to put the “so-called” there of course; “missing link” is a term best avoided when it comes to the complex branches of human ancestry.
This discovery also undermines one theory of human evolution...
Between 12 to 7 million years ago our common ancestor with gorillas, chimps and such like was wandering around. Due to a lack of fossil evidence though we have only theories about where they were wandering. One theory holds apes left Africa and evolved into different species, which then returned to the continent and became the “missing link” between man and ape. Another theory holds that they first appeared in Africa.
“Now, we have a good candidate in Africa. We do not need to think the common ancestor came back from Eurasia to Africa,” said Yutaka Kunimatsu of Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute (BBC).
Previously the best candidate for being closest to a common ancestor was Ouranopithecus macedoniensis from Greece. “The new genus resembles Ouranopithecus macedoniensis (9.6–8.7 Ma, Greece) in size and some features but retains less specialized characters, such as less inflated cusps and better-developed cingula on cheek teeth, and it was recovered from a slightly older age (9.9 –9.8 Ma),” report Kunimatsu and colleagues in this week’s PNAS (paper).
Image: fossil jawbone of Nakalipithecus nakayamai / Yutaku Kunimatsu.