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Ancient dentition of sometime - world monkey , which are most tight related to to humans , have now been unearthed , fossils 3 million age older than previous remains find to date , researchers say .
Theold - world monkeysare native to Africa and Asia today , and let in many familiar primates , such as baboon and macaque . Unlike thenew - domain monkeysof the Americas , tails of previous - world monkey are never greedy , or capable to compass things .
The fossils belong to early colobine monkeys, primates whose living members include the large-nosed proboscis monkey (shown here).
The modern old - world monkeys emerged during the Miocene epoch , which endure about 5 million to 23 million years ago and saw the first appearance of wide expanse of grassland . However , the monkeys ' inception and the way they subsequently diversified remain unsealed , since there is a scarcity of fogey sites on land in Africa dating between 6 million and 15 million years old .
Now scientist have unearthed the early sometime - human beings rapscallion fossils known — teeth that are 12.5 million age onetime . They apparently belong to former colobine scamp , primates whose life members let in the skunklike fateful - and - white colobus and the enceinte - nosed proboscis rapscallion . [ Image Gallery : Photos of the Cutest Gelada Monkeys ]
" citizenry may inquire if the uncovering of a single grinder tooth is really compelling evidence for the bearing of colobines at this early date , but it is about as convincing asa single crashed spaceshipwould be as grounds for life sentence outside our planet , " researcher James Rossie , a paleoprimatologist at Stony Brook University in New York , told LiveScience .
The fogey were bring out in 2006 at the Tugen Hills in western Kenya . The raging , teetotal scrubland of the site is a difficult place to sour .
" The terrain routinely breaks our vehicles in unexpected ways , and we closely obtain ourselves stranded and head for the hills out of drinkable water that year , " Rossie recalled .
The remains consist of two tooth — a molar and a premolar — and may represent one or possibly two species of other colobine monkeys weighing about 10 pounds ( 4.5 kilograms ) . The shape of these teeth suggests the imp spend less time eat on leaves than their modern relatives , and may have feed more on seed .
The researchers suggest these findings disgorge new light on the context in which old - world monkeys get up . For instance , they reveal these former colobines apparently coexist with other , morearchaic primates , and competition with these old - world imp could have helped drive the other groups to extinction , they note .
The scientists added it could make sense that other colobines perhaps lived on seeds and unripe fruit . Such a diet would aid push back the evolution of a gut to help digest this textile , which in turn adapted to break down the leaf that modern colobines often live on today .
Rossie , Hill and their colleague Christopher Gilbert detailed their findings on-line March 18 in the daybook Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .
