SCIENCE 2.0
Researchers announced the discovery of Afrasia djijidae, a new early anthropoid fossil.
The 37-million-year-old Afrasia djijidae resembles another early anthropoid, Afrotarsius libycus, recently discovered at a site of similar age in the Sahara Desert of Libya. That close similarity between Afrasia and Afrotarsius indicates that early anthropoids colonized Africa only shortly before the time when these animals lived. The colonization of Africa by early anthropoids was a pivotal step in primate and human evolution, because it set the stage for the later evolution of more advanced apes and humans there.
It was thought that anthropoid evolution was rooted in Africa but more recent fossil discoveries in China, Myanmar, and other Asian countries have shown a more complicated picture, as evolution predicts.
Paleontologists can’t say exactly how and when early Asian anthropoids made their way from Asia to Africa but everyone agrees the trip could not have been easy. A more extensive version of the modern Mediterranean Sea, called the Tethys Sea, separated Africa from Eurasia during that time. The discovery of Afrasia does not solve the exact route early anthropoids followed in reaching Africa but it does suggest that the colonization event occurred relatively recently, only shortly before the first anthropoid fossils are found in the African fossil record.
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