Fossils found in Panama first monkey in North America – La Cronica de Hoy

A group of seven fossil teeth, with 21 million years old, belonging to the first monkey in North America, were found in the excavations for the Panama Canal expansion, scientific sources revealed today.
 
 

The remains “are the first evidence of a monkey in the mainland of North America before the Isthmus of Panama to join South America 3.5 million years ago,” said Smithsonian Institute Tropical research Institute (STRI).

“Before this discovery it was believed that New World monkeys evolved isolated in South America, apart from North America by a wide sea,” said lead study author Jonathan Bloch.
 
 

Scientists named the monkey 21 million years ago “Panamacebus transitus” in honor of Panama and movement of these animals through the ancient seaway that divided North and South America.
 
 

Teams STRI, the University of Florida and the Museum of Natural History and Science New Mexico (United States) began five years ago bailouts fossils in areas of the Canal expansion will end this year.
 
 

The teeth were discovered in the point called “Training Waterfalls”.
 
 

The research supports the idea “that Central America and western Panama represented a long peninsula stretching south of North America,” said STRI.
 
 

“We suggest that the’Panamacebus’ was related to the capuchin monkey (also known as cariblancos”monos) and squirrel monkeys in the present are in Central America and South America,” he said Bloch, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Museum of Natural History of Florida.
 
 

Before discovering the monkey teeth, fossils of giant sloths of between 8.5 and 9.0 million years were the oldest evidence of circulation of a mammal north of South America.
 
 

The researchers raised for this two hypotheses: that mammals South America were more adapted to life in the forests of the region and the lack of fossil deposits exposed throughout Central America means that the evidence these dispersions still not revealed.
 
 

During the paleontological research in the Canal expansion, experts have registered bats, horses, squirrels, small camelids, crocodiles, turtles and ferocious bear-dog.
 
 

Details of the discovery were published in the journal Nature.
 
 

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