May 11, 20202 min read

American Primates

The researchers compared the genomes of X. mcGregori with those of monkeys still living on the South American mainland and compared them with those from other parts of South America and the Caribbean. The analysis showed that the closest relative, X. mcgregori, belonged to an active, territorial tree dweller that still inhabits a large part of the South American forest. To give an idea of how Titis cooled off from its rainforest - its cooling cousins - the researchers write that Titi and X, mc Gregori monkeys, were separated 100 million years ago. Back then, there was no overland route between South America and Jamaica, and vegetation was washed into major rivers in South America, "the authors write.

X overcame this by floating on the Earth's Atlantic vegetation mat, eventually overlooking the tropical rainforests of South America and the Caribbean, as well as parts of North America.

F fossil discoveries in Peru suggest that an entirely extinct primate family undertook the same type of oceanic journey more than 30 million years ago. The fossils, which contain a mix of the strange and the familiar, were documented 2.5 million years ago, but according to a new study, they are not the only primates to have made the journey. Three new extinct monkeys were discovered by leading paleontologists in what is now Peru in the late 1990s and early 2000s by a team of scientists from the University of California, San Diego.

The new fossils suggest that the monkeys came to Salla in Bolivia from other primates such as chimpanzees and gorillas found in South America and Central America. The characteristic teeth of these early monkeys indicate that they were indeed of African descent, and the South American monkeys are indeed of African descent.

Even better, the molars of Perupithecus resemble those of the early monkeys living in North Africa at the same time. The researchers say the arrival of the apes in South America was driven by the migration of other primates such as chimpanzees and gorillas from Africa, and not by a single ape species, Per upitheus, which displaced apes from Africa much faster than thought. According to the researchers, it is more likely that these ancestors of the New World apes were accidental migrants from Africa, as previously thought.

When the Isthmus of Panama was formed, the ocean separated North and South America, which technically allowed the monkeys to migrate to the US. Over millions of years, monkeys developed a favored tropical climate with many trees, and the study authors say that Perupithecus and its immediate ancestors probably came in storm rafts - overturned vegetation. Nevertheless, 3 million years seem to be a long time until the species has moved at least a little further north.

American Primates

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