A team of researchers from the University of Portsmouth and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences have unearthed a 17.4-million-year-old fossil tooth, providing significant insights into the dispersal of monkeys from Africa to Europe and Asia. This is the oldest evidence of a catarrhine primate – a group that includes monkeys, apes and humans – ever discovered in Europe. Published in the Journal of Human Evolution, the findings challenge previous theories that suggested catarrhine primates first arrived in Eurasia during the Miocene period, which began around 23 million years ago.
Dr Madelaine Bohme, a palaeontologist from the University of Portsmouth's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, led the analysis of the tooth, which was found in Bulgaria's Late Miocene Strumian Basin. She said: “This is a really important discovery, as it reveals that monkeys were dispersing out of Africa earlier than previously thought, well before the previously known earliest appearance of catarrhines in Eurasia at 10 million years ago.
“Before the discovery of this tooth, the earliest evidence of catarrhines in Eurasia was from a 13.8-million-year-old site in Turkey. The age of our new specimen suggests that their migration out of Africa occurred over a longer period, and not as a singular event.”
The researchers propose several possible explanations for why this dispersal from Africa to Eurasia occurred. One theory is that the changing climate of the Late Miocene period created favourable conditions for monkeys to expand their range. Another theory is that competition for food and resources with other animals in Africa may have driven some monkeys to explore new territories in Eurasia.
“In comparison to most previously known catarrhine fossils from this time, who were adapted to living on the ground or to living as semi-arboreal creatures spending much of their time on trees, our ancient monkey from Bulgaria may instead have been fully arboreal, and was likely very small like a present-day marmoset,” explained Dr Bohme.
“This would have given it the advantage of being able to exploit habitats, such as the dense, closed-canopy forests, that were previously inaccessible to other catarrhines. This might explain how it managed to disperse all the way into what is now Europe.”
The researchers believe that the dispersal of catarrhine primates from Africa to Eurasia, as revealed by the discovery of this ancient tooth, may have played a significant role in the evolutionary history of primates and the development of the diverse range of species we see today.
