13-Million-12 months-Outdated Fossil Ape Found In J&Okay’s Udhampur

Dehradun:

A global workforce 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 serious void within the ape fossil file and gives vital new proof about when the ancestors of as we speak’s gibbon migrated to Asia from Africa.

The fossil, a whole 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 web site of Ramnagar in almost a century.

The researchers, together with these from Arizona State College within the US and Panjab College in Chandigarh, have been climbing a small hill in an space the place a fossil primate jaw had been discovered the yr earlier than.

Whereas pausing for a brief relaxation, the workforce noticed one thing shiny in a small pile of filth on the bottom.

“We knew instantly it was a primate tooth, however it didn’t appear to be 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 measurement of the molar, our preliminary guess was that it is perhaps from a gibbon ancestor, however that appeared too good to be true, on condition 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.

Because the fossil’s discovery in 2015, years of examine, evaluation, and comparability have been performed 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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