researcher looking for fossil of early human ancestors at theCradle of Humankind World Heritage Sitein Malapa , South Africa , have unearthed the fond skull of the earliest baboon ever found . The 2 - million - yr - old dodo may lay out the first appearance of modern baboon anatomy , harmonize to findings published inPLoS Onethis week .
Just a few years ago , mining at Malapa Cave yield partial skeletal frame that belonged toAustralopithecus sediba , an other hominin ( that ’s us and our extinct antecedent ) that lived around1.98 million class ago . " Baboons are known to have co - be with hominins at several fossil neighborhood in East Africa and South Africa,“Hunter College ’s Christopher Gilbertsays in astatement . " They are sometimes even used as comparative model in human evolution . " These days , baboon are a successful group of primates that know all across sub - Saharan Africa into the Arabian Peninsula . But despite this evolutionary achiever , their origins in the fogy record are n’t well understood ( or agreed upon ) .
This newly divulge specimen , call UW 88 - 886 , dates back 2.026 million to 2.36 million twelvemonth , and it likely came from a malePapio angusticeps , a Plio - Pleistocene baboon that was first described in 1940 . Importantly , it confirms thatP. angusticepsis , in fact , closely related to a advanced baboon species calledPapio hamadryas . " If you placed a number ofP. angusticepsspecimens into a mod osteology appeal , I do n’t call up you ’d be able cull them out as any dissimilar from those of modern baboon from East and South Africa,“Gilbert says .
Furthermore , UW 88 - 886 represents the first appearing of modern baboon build : a long , narrow muzzle and well - developed ridges on the upper jowl , for instance . And it concur almost perfectly with late estimates for the initial show of modern baboons . " According to molecular clock survey , baboon are estimated to have diverged from their close relatives by ~1.8 to 2.2 million years ago,“Gilbert says . " However , until now , most fogy specimens known within this time range have been either too fragmentary to be unequivocal or too primitive to be confirmed as phallus of the living species . "
CT scan show UW 88 - 866 in oblique ( left over ) and lateral ( veracious ) views . brain University
