NEW YORK: Researchers have discovered in Libya a previously unknown anthropoid primate — a forerunner of today’s monkeys, apes and humans. The scientits performed the research at the Zallah Oasis, a promising site for unearthing fossils from the Oligocene period, roughly 30 million years ago.
Dubbed Apidium zuetina, it is the first example of Apidium to be found outside of Egypt, the researchers said.
“Apidium is interesting because it was the first early anthropoid primate ever to be found and described in 1908,” said lead researcher K. Christopher Beard from the University of Kansas, US.
“The oldest known Apidium fossils are about 31 million years old, while the youngest are 29 million. Before our discovery in Libya, only three species of Apidium were ever recovered in Egypt. People had come up with the idea that these primates had evolved locally in Egypt,” Beard pointed out.
Beard said that Apidium zuetina would have been physically similar to modern-day squirrel monkeys from South America, but with smaller brains, and would have dined on fruits, nuts and seeds.
