Afarensis: New Fossil Primates Discovered

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Afarensis is a 3.5-2.8 million year old hominin from the Kada Hadar member of the Hadar formation in the Middle Awash, Ethiopia. He is approximately 41 inches tall, weighs approximately 60 pounds and has a cranial capacity of a whopping 410 cc (approximately). Afarensis is currently considered to be transitional between apes and humans and displays some traits of both. Since he spends a lot of time on the couch watching monster movies, some observers question whether he is an obligate biped (although no one has observed him climbing a tree). He also has a blog called Transitions:The Evolution of Life His previous blog can be found here.
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New Fossil Primates Discovered

Category: Paleoanthropology • Primatology
Posted on: August 4, 2008 10:45 PM, by afarensis, FCD

PhysOrg mentions a new fossil primate discovered in India. The species has been christened Anthrasimias gujaratensis and consists of two upper molars and one lower molar. The teeth date to 54.5 MYA and are considered anthropoids. The finds are being published in PNAS, supposedly in the August 4-8 issue. Stay tuned for more when the paper becomes available...

Find more posts in: Humanities & Social Science

Comments

Damn. I had always thought that primates were Johnny-com-latelys to the whole mammal party. That's only about 7 million years after the dinosaurs bowed out. Hmm. Maybe that mediocre animated film with the lemurs and the dinos might have had a shred of reality. Naaah.

Posted by: (((Billy))) The Atheist | August 7, 2008 10:14 AM

Now that I have seen the PNAS paper, I must say that early primate is an unusual critter. If the experts had not classified it as an anthropoids, I would not have guessed that that was what it was. It seems closer to a tree shrew or opossum -- some generalized rodent-like beastie, to my admittedly untrained eye.
P.S. For a glimpse at some later, more obvious primates, you might like to hop over to "flickr" and look at my artwork, which failed to cross the electronic divide when I published my book on Kindle. I've sent out my "Sapiens child," "Taung baby," "Nariokotome boy," and "Neanderthal Child" so far. They are based on actual skulls.

Posted by: DianaGainer | August 16, 2008 8:20 PM

You've certainly got my attention but off course we'll have to wait very cautiously before relying on the teeth alone for changing the entire time line.
I'll follow the research with interest

Posted by: Dorothy | August 20, 2008 4:54 PM

I have only seen one tooth so far so I need to reserve judgement but I would like to point out that Chris Beard in his book "The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey" did describe a "ghost" lineage and did say that he expected to find it in asia somewhere between his Eosimias finds and Africa. India does fit, as well as the date, for his "ghost" lineage, so I wait in anticipation for more information.

Posted by: Quietman | August 23, 2008 3:41 PM