The “missing link” of evolution named Laia – Times

Ed. Print finding published in the journal Science

The remains were found in Barcelona (Spain). Pieces of the skull from the fossils were virtually rebuilt with high resolution scanners. | entornointeligente.com -. Agency

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A new primate, they have called Pliobates Cataloniae, discovered by researchers at the Catalan Institute of Paleontology Miquel Crusafont, might have been the last common ancestor between gibbons and great apes and humans.

The director of the Institut, Salvador Moya-Sola, and principal investigator of the study, David Alba, stressed yesterday, introducing the finding that the discovery was made from a skeleton of 11.6 million years found in the paleontological site of Can Mata (northeastern Spain), the most important fossil primates middle Miocene Eurasian continent.

Laia, the primate

The remains of this new primate, 70 bones of the skull and other leg and left arm, corresponding to an adult female to the paleontologists named it “Laia”, weighing about 4 or 5 kilos, fed on soft fruit, climbed and hung in the tops of the trees.

The skull Pliobates Cataloniae was reconstructed virtually with high resolution scanners and the remains of the extremities, it has seen Laia has some primitive features, such as the anatomy of the arm, the joint between the humerus and radius, and the bones of the wrist, having design Basic current hominoids.

The work of this team, published in “Science”, radically changes the hitherto accepted model on hilobátidos and ancestor of hominids, and provide very strong hints about the gibbons current source.

According to Moya-Sola said the origin of gibbons is a mystery about the lack of fossil record, but until now most scientists thought their last common ancestor with hominids should be large, about 40 kilos, since all the undoubted fossil hominids were found so far.

David Laia Alba said that might have been the last common ancestor of all the large and small anthropomorphic and human, within the group of primates, and is characterized by having no external tail.

Laia is noted that the species 17 million years ago did they separated the one hand gibbons ( hilobátidos), and on the other the (great apes and humans) hominid and ape is the first small form present in the existing hominids, which has important implications to reconstruct the last common ancestor of both groups.

According to Alba, current hominoids are a group of primates that includes the small apes (gibbons and siamangs, which constitute the family of the hilobátidos) and great apes (orangutans, gorillas and chimpanzees) than with human, form the family of hominids.

All current hominoids share the absence of external queue, a orthograde body design that enables them to an upright position of the trunk and several cranial features.

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