According to CNN reported on April 9, according to a study of tooth fossils found in Peru, about 35 million years ago, a group of now extinct monkeys set off from Africa on a natural raft, embarked on a dangerous journey across the Atlantic, and then settled in South America.
Paleontologists travel through the Yuru River in the Peruvian Amazon river against the backdrop of the Santa Rosa fossil site. (Image: Dorien de Vries)
The study was published Thursday in the journal Science.
Prehistoric Ucayalipithecus monkeys crossed the Atlantic (which was relatively narrow at the time) and traveled more than 1,400 kilometers on floating islands that may have fallen off the coastline during a tropical storm.
Erik Seiffert, professor of clinical integrative anatomy science at the University of Southern California School of Medicine and lead author of the study, said: "It was extremely difficult, Ukaria monkeys are small in size and they have an advantage over larger mammals in this case because they need less food and water. ”
Seiffert said: "That's probably why most of the aquatic events known in the fossil record involve very small animals."
It is reported that there are currently two kinds of "exotic" mammals that have also completed the difficult journey across the Atlantic, and how they reached the Atlantic has always been a hot topic.
One of them is the New World Monkeys, or broad-nosed monkeys, a small order that contains five primate families found in the tropics of Central America, South America, and Mexico. The other is a rodent that is the ancestor of animals like capybaras.
Eric Sefit picked up a tiny fossil at the Yama Santa Rosa site. (Image: Dorien de Vries)
The team found the molars of these animals during an excavation on the left bank of the Yurua River in the Peruvian Amazon. The animal was named "Ucayalipithecus perdita" because it came from the Ucayali region of the Peruvian Amazon basin where teeth were found, pithikos means monkey in Greek and perdita means lost in Latin.
It weighs about 350 grams and is similar in size to some marmosets living in South America today.
Seiffert said the molar fossils are very similar to those of Parapithecidae, an African primate that is now extinct, which lived in Egypt, Libya and Tanzania between 23 and 56 million years ago.
"If the Ukaria monkey were like its African para-ape relative, it would have lived in trees and was likely an agile jumper," Seiffert said.
Seiffert explains: "Mammalian teeth, especially molars, are extremely diverse in shape, and the unique arrangement of the teeth is almost like a paleontologist's fingerprint. The teeth of the Ukaria monkey allow us to include the monkey in the primate family tree and also tell us what it eats, in which case the Ukaria monkey may mainly eat fruit. ”
Miniature molars of the Ukalia monkey from the Santa Rosa Fossil Field. (Image source: CNN)
Seiffert said he had doubted whether animals could "cross the ocean on rafts," but he said a video of land debris floating on the Panama Canal after the storm convinced him. These natural rafts can support upright trees that may bear fruit, he said.
"If a small primate can ride such a 'raft,' then it's very likely that they'll be that far away," he said.
Seiffert said the site where the fossils were found was on the banks of a remote part of peru's Amazon River, where there are no roads and everything is transported out in small planes.
"What struck me even more about this study is that in this remote place, the chances of finding these fragments are very small, and we reveal the incredible journey of these early monkeys, all of which is very remarkable," Seiffert said.
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