Ancient monkeys may have voyaged across the Atlantic Ocean on rafts
Fossilised monkey teeth unearthed deep within the Peruvian Amazon suggest that ancient monkeys journeyed there from Africa, according to a study at Keck School of Medicine, in Los Angeles.
The fossilised teeth belong to a monkey species previously unknown to science. The researchers have named the species Ucayalipithecus perdita, and found that it belongs to an extinct family of African primates known as parapithecids. One plausible explanation, according to the team, is that the monkeys made the trip on floating rafts of
vegetation that broke off from coastlines, possibly during a storm. At the time, the landmasses of Africa and South America were closer together, which means the voyage may have been about 1,450km (900 miles).
Based on the age of the Amazonian site and the similarity of U. perdita to its fossil relatives from Egypt, it is estimated that the migration might have occurred around 34 million years ago.
“We’re suggesting that this group might have made it over to South America right around what we call the Eocene-Oligocene Boundary, a time period between two geological epochs, when the Antarctic ice sheet started to build up and the sea level fell,” said study leader Prof Erik Seiffert. “That might have played a role in making it a bit easier for these primates to actually get across the Atlantic Ocean.”
The monkey would have been tiny, similar in size to a modern-day marmoset.
“The thing that strikes me about this study, more than any other I’ve been involved in, is just how improbable all of it is,” said Seiffert. “The fact that it’s this remote site in the middle of nowhere, that the chances of finding these pieces is extremely
small, to the fact that we’re revealing this very improbable journey that was made by these early monkeys, it’s all quite remarkable.”