OLD CHIMPANZEE TEETH PLUS
Bloch and his colleagues have spent the last six years collecting and studying fossils, plus other geological and archeological samples, from the area. And you can't access fossils without rocks." "But with those beautiful forests comes a downside - it's incredibly hard to access rock. "There's a great deal to learn about the evolutionary history through the fossil record of the tropics," Bloch said. The rainforests of Panama, like tropical environments worldwide, are some of the most biologically diverse areas on Earth. The massive construction project - widening, deepening and adding new locks to the 100-year-old canal - required digging directly through fossil deposits. They were uncovered thanks to a once-in-a-century research opportunity created by the expansion of the Panama Canal. The researchers actually discovered several fossils from the specimen in Panama: seven tiny teeth ("beautiful teeth," Bloch said). "There appears to be potentially a barrier between two forests with very different histories," Bloch said. One theory is that the monkeys weren't used to eating the continent's food: They were unwilling to trade South America's tropical fruits for northern acorns. The new discovery raises questions about why monkeys never ventured farther into North America. "This fossil shows us that one of the first waves of GABI happened about 12 million years before our previous record," Bloch said. It wasn't until the rise of the Isthmus of Panama, about 4 million years ago that North and South America were connected and animals could migrate between the continents - a major event known as the Great American Biotic Interchange (GABI). "For a long time, South America - after its disconnect from Antarctica - has been thought of as an island continent," said Jonathan Bloch, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History and a researcher on the NSF-funded project. The findings were published today in the journal Nature. The discovery, which was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), adds a layer of complexity to established theories about the past movement of animals on the continents. It somehow made the journey from South America to North America 15 million years before there was a land bridge to travel across. The fossil monkey is closely related to living South American monkeys, such as capuchins. Scientists have discovered the first-ever fossil evidence of monkeys from the North American landmass: a 21-million-year-old specimen that changes our understanding of the biological history of the continent.
Telephone numbers or other contact information mayīe out of date please see current contact information at media This material is available primarily for archival Photograph of the upper molar of 21 million-year-old Panamacebus.
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