Discovery of oldest primate skeleton helps chart early evolution of humans, apes
Wednesday, June 5, 2013 - 16:30
in Paleontology & Archaeology
An international team of researchers has announced the discovery of the world's oldest known fossil primate skeleton, an animal that lived about 55 million years ago and was even smaller than today's smallest primate, the pygmy mouse lemur. This new fossil illuminates a pivotal event in primate and human evolution: the divergence between the lineage leading to modern monkeys, apes, and humans and the branch leading to living tarsiers--small, nocturnal tree-dwelling primates.