New species named Panamacebus
transitus
Date: April 20, 2016
Source: Smithsonian Tropical
Research Institute
Seven fossil teeth exposed by the
Panama Canal expansion project are the first evidence of a monkey on the North
American continent before the Isthmus of Panama connected it to South America
3.5 million years ago. A team including Carlos Jaramillo, staff scientist at
the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), published this discovery online
in the journal, Nature today. They named the new monkey
species Panamacebus transitus in honor of Panama and the monkey's
movement across the ancient seaway that divided North and South America.
The 21 million-year-old teeth
were found in the Las Cascadas Formation during a five-year intensive fossil
salvage project by field crews from STRI, the University of Florida and the New
Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. Most of the mammal groups
represented in the Las Cascadas formation have North American origins, despite
the fact that South America is much closer, supporting the idea that Central
America and western Panama represented a long peninsula extending south from
North America.
During the salvage project,
researchers rushed in behind engineers as they dynamited the steep canal banks.
The researchers collected exposed fossils and described each location before
heavy rains and fast-growing vegetation obscured evidence of the dramatic
tectonic events that lifted the land bridge out of the sea to connect North and
South America.
"I asked my boss for a
million dollars to dig a hole in the ground," said Jaramillo. "Then
the Panamanian people voted for the Panama Canal Authority to spend $5.6
billion dollars to expand the Canal and unlocked a treasure trove for us,
containing this new monkey species and many other fossils."
"We suggest that Panamacebus
was related to the capuchin (also known as "organ-grinder" monkeys)
and squirrel monkeys that are found in Central and South America today,"
said Jonathan Bloch, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum
of Natural History on the University of Florida campus and lead author on the
study. "Prior to this discovery, New World monkeys were thought to have
evolved in isolation on South America, cut-off from North America by a wide
seaway."
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