A Friday again the world of paleoanthropology strikes again with an amazing find.
barely been two weeks of the "Florida" shock of women dwarf Indonesia, Meike Köhler, Salvador Moya-Sola and other scientists at the Institute Crusafont Miquel de Sabadell, announced in Science that during construction of a road in the Catalan town of Pierola Hostalets were found in 2002 the fossil remains of an anthropoid ape about 13 million years old.
The fossil is in exceptional condition, and has a face evocative, perfectly conservado.Pero in this case, the wonderful thing is not only its excellent state of preservation, but also their age: the fossil is from the middle Miocene, a period that, to get an idea has been called on other occasions " black hole "of human evolution. This allows us to imagine and the importance of the find.
is an extraordinary discovery: a well-preserved skeleton, very complete, an adult male weighing about 35 kilos and 1.20 m in height. Is assigned to a new species, which has been named as Pierolapithecus catalanicus , and as usual in paleoanthropology, the specimen was familiarly dubbed as "Pau".
seems, according to the discoverers, it is "a kind mosaic that shows the evolutionary transition between the typical way to move the monkeys (as macaques, baboons, ...) and brachiation (hanging from the trees as do orangutans), the schema that fits the anatomy of apes. The anatomy of the chest body Pau is adapted to climbing trees and half upright posture of great apes (gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans and humans), although the architecture of the wrist would not allow them suspended from the trees, as do orangutans . This suggests, again according to the authors, the different features of the body of the Apes emerged separately, not once.
Its discoverers put it at the crossroads between men, gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans, and speculated that its origin is African, and that it had spread to Europe through the Middle East.
In my humble opinion, it is still early to say exhaustively.
What is undeniable is the significance of the finding, as several researchers have pointed out very reputable, and Pilbeam or Begun.
regards as Pau lived: it seems that living in a lush forest, along with elephants, rhinoceroses, and several species of reptiles. Come on, a very different road from which fu removed.
Also these days, the thread of the theme of human evolution, in "Nature" has been published a work which is put forward the idea that the anatomy of the genus Homo developed as an adaptation to long-distance race.
Anyway, that's it for now. On Friday we are spoiled. To know that is what we are reserving paleoanthropology for the next ...
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