South American monkeys came from Africa

[Judi Lynn]

South American monkeys came from Africa
February 6, 2015




A team of researchers from the US and Argentina have discovered the first evidence that South American monkeys originated in Africa and crossed the Atlantic Ocean to reach their new home, according to research published online Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Scientists have long hypothesized that the origin story of the South American monkeys involved something to that effect, but such a suggestion was difficult to support without fossil data to back up those claims. The discovery of three new extinct monkeys from eastern Peru seems to indicate that primates now living in that region can trace their roots back to African ancestors.

Scientists weren’t monkeying around

Those fossils, which were first discovered by Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County curator and study co-author Dr. Ken Campbell in 2010, were found in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon. However, since they were so unusual to South America, it took two years of research to determine that they were actually the remains of a primitive monkey.

South America was an island continent for millions of years, and became isolated from Africa due to plate tectonics over 65 million years ago. Yet it somehow managed to become home to unfamiliar types of plants and animals, including monkeys and rodents whose remains appeared suddenly and mysteriously in the continent’s fossil record.

“The earliest phases of the evolutionary history of monkeys in South America have remained cloaked in mystery,” the museum explained. While experts have long believed that the creatures managed to survive a transatlantic journey from Africa, there had been little evidence to support these claims until recently.

Read more at http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113329675/first-evidence-that-south-american-monkeys-came-from-africa-020615/#Vt39UBdhu8Y9FDEZ.99

[JDDavis]

1. "Scientists weren’t monkeying around"

I somehow think their ancestors were part of the same continent before Africa and South America separated, a few hundred million years earlier.

But what do I know? Nothing.

I find this fascinating, but mystifying, and based upon little evidence and a strange theory.

This will need more investitation, I think.

[Enthusiast]

3. I agree.

The ancestors of these primates had to have lived during the time when South America and Africa were joined. Additionally, some species remain unchanged for many millions of years. The fossil record is far from complete even under the best of circumstances.

Mammals do not "raft" over great distances to populate islands and continents. Look at the odd flora and fauna on Madagascar compared to that of relatively close by Africa for example.

[cstanleytech]

4. Africa and South America havent been joined in over 80 million years but the fossils

under discussion are far younger thus they believe the ancestors of the monkeys crossed the ocean somehow.
Most likely it was on a drifting tree and its not to far fetched as is how rats and other small animals cross oceans today and back then the monkey ancestors were a heck of alot smaller than today.

[Enthusiast]

5. That is what I am disputing.

I understand, according to the modern interpretation of plate tectonics, Africa and South America have been separated for over 80 million years. This I do not dispute.

But if mammals do commonly raft between land masses why don't we find African type monkeys on Madagascar? On Madagascar we have lemurs only.

I'm not saying animals do not occasionally raft to other lands. I just don't think that was the case when considering old world and new world monkeys. I believe more advanced primate ancestors have been around far longer than the fossil record indicates. The fossil record just has too many missing pages to reveal this as of yet. YMMV. Being a lay person I am not restricted to conventional thinking.

[AverageJoe90]

7. Maybe, but the one major problem is.....

Primates, as we know them, haven't been around for more than maybe 8 million years; hell, for all we know now, the earliest *proto-humans* may be older than that!

But I do think this is a fascinating theory as well, if perhaps needing more evidence to support it. Or perhaps, maybe, we could be looking at convergent evolution as a significant possibility.

[JDDavis]

8. "we could be looking at convergent evolution as a significant possibility"

Not an unreasonable proposition.

Both South America and Africa have had environments and climates for thousands of thousands of years, (millions), so between 20-10 mya, and now, continentally joined or not, primates or whatever developed along significantly similar environments for hundreds and hundreds of thousands of years, (millions), each favoring the progenesis of one sub-species over the other, over and over again, each over hundreds of thousands of years times 20 or 30 or fifty epochs of hundreds of thousands of years.

Thinking about 100,000 years blows my mind, thinking 10 or 100 times that, I cannot imagine, small brain here. I only know about history from the last 10,000- 15,000 years, and DNA of another closely related species that died out 20-60,000 years ago, leaving only their trace DNA in most of our white Euro, Asian, and non-sub saharan African type bodies. (Neanderthal).

Not unreasonable that mammals with backbones would evolve in a similar fashion,thus producing genetically similar ape-forms on both continents

. But only one species of Homo-sapiens survived into the last 500,000-200,000 to today years, and their origin is pretty well established to have only come out of Africa.

[leveymg]

2. Yes, but they developed a style all their own. Vive el Mustachio!

[Panich52]

6. Not just mustaches...

African monkeys lack prehensil tails common in SA monkeys.