TY - JOUR
T1 - New Middle Miocene Ape (Primates
T2 - Hylobatidae) from Ramnagar, India fills major gaps in the hominoid fossil record: New Middle Miocene Ape from Ramnagar
AU - Gilbert, Christopher C.
AU - Ortiz, Alejandra
AU - Pugh, Kelsey D.
AU - Campisano, Christopher J.
AU - Patel, Biren A.
AU - Singh, Ningthoujam Premjit
AU - Fleagle, John G.
AU - Patnaik, Rajeev
N1 - Funding Information:
K.D.P. performed morphometric analyses. K.D.P. and C.C.G. performed the phylogenetic analyses. All authors wrote the paper. Competing interests. We declare we have no competing interests. Funding. This work was supported by the Leakey Foundation, the PSC-CUNY faculty award programme, Hunter College, the AAPA professional development programme, the University of Southern California, the Institute of Human Origins (ASU), and the National Science Foundation (BCS Award nos. 1945736, 1945618). In addition, R.P. and N.P.S. were supported by MoES/P.O. (Geosci)/46/2015 and SERB-HRR/2018/000063. Acknowledgements. Terry Harrison provided access to Yuanmoupithecus and comments that greatly improved the manuscript. Kai He, Hira
PY - 2020/9/1
Y1 - 2020/9/1
N2 - The fossil record of 'lesser apes' (i.e. hylobatids = gibbons and siamangs) is virtually non-existent before the latest Miocene of East Asia. However, molecular data strongly and consistently suggest that hylobatids should be present by approximately 20 Ma; thus, there are large temporal, geographical, and morphological gaps between early fossil apes in Africa and the earliest fossil hylobatids in China. Here, we describe a new approximately 12.5-13.8 Ma fossil ape from the Lower Siwaliks of Ramnagar, India, that fills in these long-standing gaps with implications for hylobatid origins. This ape represents the first new hominoid species discovered at Ramnagar in nearly a century, the first new Siwalik ape taxon in more than 30 years, and likely extends the hylobatid fossil record by approximately 5 Myr, providing a minimum age for hylobatid dispersal coeval to that of great apes. The presence of crown hylobatid molar features in the new species indicates an adaptive shift to a more frugivorous diet during the Middle Miocene, consistent with other proposed adaptations to frugivory (e.g. uricase gene silencing) during this time period as well.
AB - The fossil record of 'lesser apes' (i.e. hylobatids = gibbons and siamangs) is virtually non-existent before the latest Miocene of East Asia. However, molecular data strongly and consistently suggest that hylobatids should be present by approximately 20 Ma; thus, there are large temporal, geographical, and morphological gaps between early fossil apes in Africa and the earliest fossil hylobatids in China. Here, we describe a new approximately 12.5-13.8 Ma fossil ape from the Lower Siwaliks of Ramnagar, India, that fills in these long-standing gaps with implications for hylobatid origins. This ape represents the first new hominoid species discovered at Ramnagar in nearly a century, the first new Siwalik ape taxon in more than 30 years, and likely extends the hylobatid fossil record by approximately 5 Myr, providing a minimum age for hylobatid dispersal coeval to that of great apes. The presence of crown hylobatid molar features in the new species indicates an adaptive shift to a more frugivorous diet during the Middle Miocene, consistent with other proposed adaptations to frugivory (e.g. uricase gene silencing) during this time period as well.
KW - Asia
KW - biogeography
KW - fossil
KW - gibbon
KW - hylobatid
KW - lower Siwaliks
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U2 - 10.1098/rspb.2020.1655
DO - 10.1098/rspb.2020.1655
M3 - Article
C2 - 32900315
AN - SCOPUS:85090748693
VL - 287
JO - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
JF - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
SN - 0800-4622
IS - 1934
M1 - 20201655
ER -