“Unveiling an Ancient Mystery: How Monkeys Became the First Adventurers to Cross the Atlantic Over 30 Million Years Ago!”
According to Smithsonian, ancestors of today’s capuchin and woolly monkeys first arrived on the Western Hemisphere by floating on mats of vegetation and earth.
University of Southern California’s study, published in the Science journal, posits an entirely different, now extinct species, did the same.
According to CNN, experts now believe this prehistoric species of parapithecids, dubbed Ucayalipithecus perdita, made the 900-mile journey during a tropical rainstorm. Most fascinating, their diminutive stature may have been what allowed them to survive such a treacherous trip.
Erik SeiffertScans of the fossilized molars discovered in the Amazon.
“It would have been extremely difficult, though very small animals the size of Ucayalipithecus would be at an advantage over larger mammals in such a situation, because they would have needed less of the food and water that their raft of vegetation could have provided,” said study author Erik Seiffert.
“This is presumably why most of these overwater dispersal events that we know of in the fossil record involve very small animals,” Seiffert added.
Seiffert uncovered a set of four fossilized teeth from this second primate group on the banks of the Río Yurúa in Peru. The species in question was thought to have only lived in Africa until the paleontologist unearthed the evidence from 32-million-year-old rock.
Paleoprimatologist Ellen Miller of Wake Forest University explained that “parapithecid teeth are distinctive,” which means it’s highly unlikely that another form of monkey or animal could have grown the teeth found fossilized in Peru.
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