The fossil belongs to a beforehand unknown genus and species (Representational)
Dehradun:
A world group of researchers has unearthed a 13-million-year-old fossil of a newly found ape species in Jammu and Kashmir’s Udhampur District, which is the earliest identified ancestor of the modern-day gibbon.
The discovering, printed within the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, fills a significant void within the ape fossil file and supplies necessary new proof about when the ancestors of in the present day’s gibbon migrated to Asia from Africa.
The fossil, an entire decrease molar, belongs to a beforehand unknown genus and species (Kapi ramnagarensis), and represents the primary new fossil ape species found on the well-known fossil website of Ramnagar in practically a century.
The researchers, together with these from Arizona State College within the US and Panjab College in Chandigarh, had been climbing a small hill in an space the place a fossil primate jaw had been discovered the 12 months earlier than.
Whereas pausing for a brief relaxation, the group noticed one thing shiny in a small pile of grime on the bottom.
“We knew instantly it was a primate tooth, nevertheless it didn’t seem like the tooth of any of the primates beforehand discovered within the space,” mentioned Christopher C. Gilbert, from Metropolis College of New York within the US.
“From the form and dimension of the molar, our preliminary guess was that it could be from a gibbon ancestor, however that appeared too good to be true, provided that the fossil file of lesser apes is nearly nonexistent,” Gilbert famous.
He defined that there are different primate species identified throughout that point, and no gibbon fossils have beforehand been discovered anyplace close to Ramnagar.
For the reason that fossil’s discovery in 2015, years of examine, evaluation, and comparability had been carried out to confirm that the tooth belongs to a brand new species, in addition to to precisely decide its place within the ape household tree, the researchers mentioned.
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