Putting a Face on Ancient Apes

Abstract

![Figure][1] CREDIT: COURTESY PNAS When workers dug up a fossil while building a dump for a country house in the hills west of Barcelona, Spain, a half-dozen years ago, they had no idea that they had uncovered a treasure trove of fossils. Among them was a new species of ape that lived 11.9 million years ago, according to a report in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . The discovery literally puts a face on a type of Miocene ape that may have given rise to African apes—gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and humans—says paleontologist Salvador Moya-Sola of the Institut Catala de Paleontologia in Barcelona. The new ape, called Anoiapithecus brevirostris , may offer clues about whether apes in Eurasia or Africa gave rise to great ape lineages, says Moya-Sola. The jaw has traits that could tie it to later African apes: a deep upper palate and thick tooth enamel. The relatively flat midface and high-crowned canines are also reminiscent of hominids, the offshoot that led to modern humans. But the authors also acknowledge that the traits could have arisen independently both in Europe and in Africa. This ape would have been an evolutionary dead end if, as most scientists believe, great apes emerged in Africa. [1]: pending:yes