According to reports, researchers from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in a collaborative study with foreign scientists, found a paleontological fossil dating back about 18 million years in Fanchang County, Anhui Province, China, which belongs to the ape superfamily, and is also a completely new species, named "Jin's Fanchang Ape".
What is ape?
To answer this question, we need to start with the evolution of primates. We all know that about 100 million years ago, mammals appeared on the earth, but at that time, the earth was still the world of dinosaurs. So in order to survive, mammals have been surviving in the cracks until the arrival of the fifth mass extinction.
Fossil studies have found that primates appeared on Earth about 56 million years ago, but at this time, apes did not appear. It was not until 30 million years ago that there were apes on the earth, but in the process of ape evolution, there were many apes that appeared only for a short time and were naturally eliminated.
The ape is one of them. The ape, also known as the upper neoplex, appeared in the middle and late Miocene, and through fossil studies, it is mainly distributed in Eurasia.
From the perspective of primate taxonomy, the ape belongs to a branch of the extinct and non-living dry narrow-nosed monkey class, and the "Kim's Fanchang Ape" discovered this time, from the perspective of evolutionary time, about 1 million years after the appearance of the ape, the "Jin's Fanchang Ape" has appeared.
How did it evolve?
Although the fossil of the "Kim's Boom boom" was unearthed in Asia, this does not mean that it is an animal native to Asia, on the contrary, scientists believe that the hometown of the "Kim's Boom Boom Ape" is in Africa, which also means that the ape superfamily it belongs to came out of Africa to the Eurasian continent to evolve the "Kim's Boom Boom Ape".
Because through research, scientists have found that the dry narrow-nosed monkey to which the ape belongs has appeared about 20 million years ago, and many fossils have been found in Africa, but strangely, although some of its branch fossils have been found in Eurasia, no fossils have been found at the same time as it.
Therefore, scientists believe that the dry narrow-nosed monkey originated in Africa, to be precise, it should appear on the Afro-Arab land plate, and before Eurasia and the African-Arab land plate were connected, it had evolved multiple taxa such as the ape superfamily in just about 2 million years.
Since then, about 19 million years ago, Eurasia and the Arabian Peninsula have been connected, at this time, the early members of the Apes superfamily who originally lived in the Arabian Peninsula came to Eurasia through the Arabian Peninsula, initially reaching southern and eastern Asia, and then migrating to Europe 17 million years ago, but soon after arrival, they became extinct.
With the "Jin's Prosperity Ape" found 18 million years old fossils in Anhui, China, Chinese and foreign researchers believe that the branches of the Ape Superfamily completed differentiation in China after arriving in China, and then gradually spread to Europe, and this study also means that Asia is the evolution center of the Ape Superfamily, not the Europe that scientists speculated before.
Why do "monkeys" have to go out of Africa?
With regard to the understanding of going out of Africa, we usually think that species migration only occurs after the emergence of humans, and that many migrations are done with the help of humans, such as some species in many places that are not available elsewhere, which also seems to prove that species rarely migrate on their own.
However, many studies have shown that after the emergence of primates, there have been many migrations, in addition to the discovery of the "Kim's flourishing ape", proving that the ape superfamily once went out of Africa to evolve in many places, in April this year, researchers at the University of Southern California in peru in the Amazon rainforest, found 34 million years ago monkey teeth, which means that 34 million years ago, there was a group of monkeys from Africa to South America.
The ancestors of the "Kim's Booming Ape" came to Eurasia from Africa, which is understandable, after all, the land plates are connected, but how did african monkeys reach South America? And why are they out of Africa? Studies believe that animals migrate for better habitat and for more food.
The earth's climatic environment is not always the same, and when the original habitat is problematic due to climatic changes, the animals will also leave to find a new home, such as the "Kim's Flourishing Ape", and the same is true of the monkeys who arrived in South America 34 million years ago.
Scientists believe that they may have accompanied the decline in sea level, and then drifted all the way to South America on something similar to a "raft", and quickly adapted to the South American environment after landing, and evolved new species. These findings are of great significance for studying the evolutionary history of apes, and may help humans sort out a complete evolutionary context.
Sources
"Science and Technology Daily" July 13 article "Kim's Fanchang Shang ape: a new member of the ape superfamily"