Fossil ape found in Kenya could be our oldest ancestor
A BABY ape discovered in Kenya could be from a species which was the earliest ancestor of all humans, scientists believe.
The little creature, whose skull is roughly the size of a lemon, lived around 13million years ago and came from a family which may have eventually evolved into man and apes.
It was discovered by John Ekusi, a Kenyan fossil hunter, in ancient rock layers in the Napudet area, west of Lake Turkana.
All humans and apes alive today come from a common lineage, but until now paleontologists have only managed to trace that line back 10million years, so it was unclear what our ancestors looked liked further back, and if they originated in Africa or elsewhere.
The specimen has been labelled Nyanzapithecus alesi. It was 16 months old when it died. The new skull has a noticeably small snout, like a gibbon, but scans of the inside of the cranium reveal that it had ear tubes which are closer to chimpanzees and humans.
“What the discovery of Alesi shows is that this group was close to the origin of living apes and humans and that this origin was African,” said Dr Isaiah Nengo, of Stony Brook University, the lead author of the research published in the journal Nature.