Oldest evidence of split between Old World monkeys and apes discovered
Two fossil discoveries from the East African Rift reveal new information about the evolution of primates, according to a study published online in Nature this week led by Ohio University scientists.
The team’s findings document the oldest fossils of two major groups of primates: the group that today includes apes and humans (hominoids), and the group that includes Old World monkeys such as baboons and macaques (cercopithecoids).
Geological analyses of the study site indicate that the finds are 25 million years old, significantly older than fossils previously documented for either of the two groups.Both primates are new to science, and were collected from a single fossil site in the Rukwa Rift Basin of Tanzania.
Rukwapithecus fleaglei is an early hominoid represented by a mandible preserving several teeth. Nsungwepithecus gunnelli is an early cercopithecoid represented by a tooth and jaw fragment..
(read more: PhysOrg) (illustration by Mauricio Anton)
The Silky Sifaka (Propithecus candidus), found only in northeastern Madagascar, is a large lemur that is one of the rarest of all mammals, threatened in its limited range by both habitat destruction and hunting.
Hibernating primates: scientists discover three lemur species sleep like bears
by Jeremy Hance
ears do it, bats do it, and now we know lemurs do it too: hibernate, that is. Since 2005, scientists have known that the western fat-tailed dwarf lemur hibernates, but a new study in Scientific Reports finds that hibernation is more widespread among lemurs than expected. At least two additional lemur species—Crossley’s dwarf lemur and Sibree’s dwarf lemur—have been discovered hibernating. So far lemurs, which are only found on the island of Madagascar, are the only primates known to undergo hibernation, raising curious questions about the relationship between lemur hibernation and more well-known deep sleepers…
(read more: MongaBay) (photo: MongaBay/Rhett A. Butler)
Endangered primates and cats may be hiding out in swamps and mangrove forests
by Jeremy Hance
What happens to animals when their forest is cut down? If they can, they migrate to different forests. But in an age when forests are falling far and fast, many species may have to shift to entirely different environments. A new paper in Folia Primatologica theorizes that some 60 primate species and 20 wild cat species in Asia and Africa may be moving from rainforests to less-impacted environments such as swamp forests, mangroves, and peat forests.
“Where primates and felids face forest habitat disturbance, they may need to shift habitats, diets, activity patterns,” author of the paper Katarzyna Nowak with Princeton University told mongabay.com. “In areas with swamp forests—like areas with hard to reach mountaintops—these taxa can find safety and shelter in the flooded forest, which may be less disturbed than the adjacent upland forest.”…
Drill baby drill! The fate of African biodiversity and the monkey you’ve never heard of
Commentary by: Zach Fitzner
Equatorial Guinea is not a country that stands very large in the American consciousness. In fact most Americans think you mean Papua New Guinea when you mention it or are simply baffled. When I left for Bioko Island in Equatorial Guinea, I also knew almost nothing about the island, the nation, or the Bioko drills (Mandrillus leucophaeus poensis). The subspecies of drill is unique to Bioko Island and encountering them was an equally unique experience. I initially went to Bioko as a turtle research assistant but ended up falling in love with the entire ecosystem, especially the Bioko drills as I tagged along with drill researchers.
Bioko itself looks a bit like a bean; if the bean was 779 square miles, made out of dormant volcanoes, covered in lush rainforest and floating in the Atlantic off Africa’s west coast that is. The island is part of the Cameroonian line, a chain of dormant volcanoes extending west from the mainland. Ten thousand years ago rising sea levels cut off a peninsula, creating Bioko, which is the main island of Equatorial Guinea, a small Spanish-speaking nation in equatorial, western Africa. Bioko has a population of about 260,000 spread throughout some 26 cities arranged mostly near the coast.
But Bioko is also a refuge for wildlife, including seven species of monkey and eleven subspecies, hidden away in the rough interior of the island. Wildlife biodiversity and endemism (species found only on the island) are high because Bioko is in the tropics, and an island with a relatively low human population. The Bioko drill is arguably the island’s flagship species…
“The blue-eyed black lemur (Eulemur flavifrons) is one of the world’s 25 most endangered primates—and is the only known non-human primate with truly blue eyes (as an adult). With less than 2,000 specimens left in the wild, zoos and wildlife sanctuaries are trying to develop programs to ensure its survival. Dimbi [pictured] is a blue-eyed lemur cub born on April 19 at the Mulhouse Zoo and Botanical Gardens in Alsace, France.”
Strongest Evidence of Animal Culture Seen in Monkeys and Whales
by Michael Balter
Until fairly recently, many scientists thought that only humans had culture, but that idea is now being crushed by an avalanche of recent research with animals. Two new studies in monkeys and whales take the work further, showing how new cultural traditions can be formed and how conformity might help a species survive and prosper. The findings may also help researchers distinguish the differences between animal and human cultures.
Researchers differ on exactly how to define culture, but most agree that it involves a collective adoption and transmission of one or more behaviors among a group. Humans’ ability to create and transmit new cultural trends has helped our species dominate Earth, in large part because each new generation can benefit from the experiences of the previous one.
Researchers have found that similar, albeit much simpler, cultural transmission takes place in animals, including fish, insects, meerkats, birds, monkeys, and apes. Sometimes these cultural traits seem bizarre, such as the recently developed trend among some capuchin monkeys to poke each other’s eyeballs with their long, sharp fingernails—a behavior that originated among a small group of individuals and which has spread over time…
We all know of the Amazon rain forest. But there was once another great forest in Brazil the Atlantic Rain Forest. Today there’s only 2% of it remaining and the mini monkeys that once lived there are struggling for survival.
When you talk of Brazil’s wildlife you tend to think of the Amazon rain forest. But few peole realise there is, or was once another forest just a big and just as bio diverse. The Atlantic rain forest.
It strech for more than 1000 miles along the Atlantic coast and inland to the eastern boarders of Brazil. Today there is less then 2% of the amazing forest and the wildlife that used to exist there is all but gone…
Among the list of new species are mouse lemurs, the world’s tiniest primates. Berthe’s mouse lemur (Microcebus berthae), discovered in 2000, is the smallest of the mouse lemurs and the smallest in the world with an average body length of 3.5 in (9 cm) and weight of around 1 ounce (30 g). It is found in the Kirindy Mitea National Park in Western Madagascar.
A veterinarian bottle-feeds Dimbi, a blue-eyed black lemur cub, on April 19 at the Mulhouse Zoo and Botanical Garden in Alsace, France. Dimbi was rejected by his mother after being born on March 8, prompting zoo staff to step in and raise him.
With more than 90 percent of all lemur species identified as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable on the IUCN’s Threatened Species list, these small primates are considered the most threatened mammals on the planet. Native to Madagascar, there’s currently less than 2,000 blue-eyed black lemurs like Dimbi in the wild.
Cinderella animals: endangered species that could be conservation stars
A cursory look at big conservation NGOs might convince the public that the only species in peril are tigers, elephants, and pandas when nothing could be further from the truth. So, why do conservation groups roll out the same flagship species over-and-over again?
Simple: it is believed these species bring in donations. A new paper in Conservation Letters examines the success of using flagship species in raising money for larger conservation needs, while also pointing out that conservation groups may be overlooking an important fundraising source: “Cinderella animals.
“Too much focus on “flagship species”?
Flagship species are animals used by conservation groups to raise funds; these species are almost always mammals, large, and appealing to the general public, often defined as ‘cute.’ This trend has long faced criticism: some researchers argue that in an age of mass extinction focusing on a few mammals trivializes the scale of the problem and leaves the bulk of the world’s threatened species without targeted protection…
Zoo Babies 2012: April - Japanese Macaque (Nihonzaru)
Between April 21 and 25, the Highland Wildlife Park in Scotland had a baby monkey boom. Three little Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) were born during that time, all to three different moms. The species, which are also called snow monkeys, are found throughout Japan, where the live in large groups in wooded areas. They have bright red faces and white fur that make them easy to recognize.
AROUND 1.7 million years ago, our ancestors’ tools went from basic rocks banged together to chipped hand axes. The strength and dexterity needed to make and use the latter quickly shaped our hands into what they are today – judging by a fossil that belongs to the oldest known anatomically modern hand.
The 1.7-million-year-old Acheulean hand axes were some of the first stone tools. Over the next million years, these chunky teardrop-shaped rocks became widely used before being replaced by finer, more precise flint tips. But how our ancestors’ hands evolved into a shape that could make such tools is a bit of a mystery.
Before the hand axes appeared, our ancestors had primitive wrists: good for hanging from branches, but too weak to grasp and handle small objects with much force. And no hand bones had been found to fill the gap between 1.7 million years ago and 800,000 years ago – by which time humans had developed the hands we have today. Now, a new fossil is helping bridge that gap…
Everybody knows “Lucy.” For nearly four decades, this famous partial skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis, dated to 3.2 million years ago, has been an ambassador for our prehistoric past, and her species has stood as the most likely immediate ancestor of our own genus-Homo.
But in a spate of new studies, paleoanthropologist Lee Berger, of the University of the Witwatersrand, and a team of collaborators have put forward a controversial claim that another hominin-Australopithecus sediba-might be even closer to the origin of our lineage, possibly bumping Lucy from the critical evolutionary junction she has occupied for so long.
Berger and colleagues named Australopithecus sediba in 2010. The 1.98-million-year-old hominin, known from partial skeletons of an adult female and a juvenile male, along with an isolated tibia, was discovered two years earlier at the South African cave site of Malapa…