A newly discovered crocodile relative from the Triassic had a beak, tiny arms, and walked on two legs, making it look more like an ostrich-like dinosaur than a crocodile. During the Triassic Period, the ancestors of many modern animal groups were branching into an astonishing variety of shapes and lifestyles. Evolution was experimenting with body [...]
New fossil suggests bird courtship displays are at least 121 million years old.
For much of the past century, fossils from East Africa have shaped our understanding of ape evolution. Now, a jawbone found in the Egyptian desert adds a new dimension to that story.
A team from Mansoura University and the University of Southern California has described a new species, Masripithecus moghraensis, in a study that appeared in the journal Science. The fossil of a lower jaw found at the Wadi Moghra site in northern Egypt, the researchers say, is the first clear evidence of an ape fossil in North Africa. Dating to 17 to 18 million years ago, it predates the known dispersal of early apes into Europe and Asia by at least a million years. This may indicate that early ape evolution extended further north than previously thought.
“We spent five years searching for this kind of fossil because, when we look closely at the early ape family tree, it becomes clear that something is missing — and North Africa holds that missing piece,” said Hesham Sallam, paleontologist at Mansoura University and senior author of the study.
The fossil is of a lower jaw with several distinctive features. Masripithecus had large canine and premolar teeth, as well as molars with rounded, textured surfaces and a robust jaw. No other ape from the same time period shows this combination of features. According to the researchers, these traits indicate a flexible diet based mainly on fruit, with some harder foods like nuts and seeds. This adaptability would have been important in northern Africa, with increasing seasonal variation in the climate.
Masripithecus stands out among East African apes of similar age by its anatomy. Its place in the ape family tree is even more significant. By combining fossil features and geological data with DNA from living apes, the team found that Masripithecus appears closer to the lineage that eventually gave rise to modern apes than any previously known Early Miocene species.
“It is well known that the fossil record of hominoids in Africa is geographically very biased,” said David Alba, a paleontologist at the University of Barcelona, in an interview with National Geographic. “It is also known that they were present in Saudi Arabia sometime later, so finding them in northern Africa by this time is important, but not totally unexpected.”
This discovery is important for both geography and anatomy. During the Early Miocene, the African and Arabian plates were moving closer to Asia. At times, lower sea levels reduced marine barriers and opened a corridor through northern Africa and the Middle East. The team’s analysis supports the idea that this region played an important role in the early evolution of living apes. This shifts the focus of ape evolution. East Africa, once seen as the main center of ape origins, may have been more of a peripheral branch.
Erik Seiffert, co-author and paleontologist at the University of Southern California, said the discovery changed his own thinking. “For my entire career, I considered it probable that the common ancestor of all living apes lived in or around East Africa. But this new discovery, and our new and novel analyses of hominoid phylogeny and biogeography, now strongly challenge that idea.”
The genus name Masripithecus combines the Arabic word Masr (for Egypt) with the Greek píthēkos, meaning ‘ape’. The species name is a reference to Wadi Moghra, where the remains were found. The researchers expect that more fossils will be found as fieldwork continues in the region. For now, this discovery shows that important parts of evolutionary history may still be hidden in areas yet to be fully explored.
Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.
A recent fossil discovery in Canada is reshaping scientists’ understanding of early animal evolution.
Deep in the Canadian Northwest Territories, researchers from the American Museum of Natural History and Dartmouth College have uncovered more than 100 fossils belonging to the Ediacaran biota, a group of soft-bodied organisms that lived over 500 million years ago.
The new finding suggests evolutionary developments such as movement, sexual reproduction, and complex body structures appeared millions of years earlier than previously thought.
The Ediacaran Period, which lasted from about 635 to 538 million years ago, marks an important stage in Earth’s history when multicellular life first became widespread. Before then, life mainly consisted of microscopic organisms.
The newly discovered fossils give scientists a closer look at this complex transition from simple microbial life to large, complex marine animals.
Found in the Mackenzie Mountains (traditional lands of the Sahtú Dene and Métis peoples), scientists researching the area discovered fossils belonging to the White Sea assemblage, a group of Ediacaran organisms previously found only in Europe, Asia, and Australia.
What makes the discovery even more impressive is the age of the fossils. Some scientists estimate the specimens are about 567 million years old, making them 5–10 million years older than any previously known White Sea fossils. The time overlap with the Avalon assemblage points to communities that existed earlier than researchers suggested.
Among the most important fossils found was Dickinsonia, a flat, oval-shaped organism believed to move across the seafloor while feeding on bacteria and algae. Scientists consider it one of the earliest animals capable of movement. Another fossil, Funisia, provides the oldest known evidence of sexual reproduction. This is a tubular organism that releases sperm and eggs into the water during reproduction.
“For 3 billion years, life on Earth was dominated by microbes,” said the study’s lead author, Scott Evans, in a statement. “Then, all the sudden, we get these strange-looking marine animals big enough to see and capable of behaviors we would find familiar today.”
Evans, who is the assistant curator of invertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, also emphasized the site’s importance in advancing understanding of the changes organisms were undergoing during this period in our planet’s deep history.
“If we want to understand this transition, when life first became large, complex and unmistakenly animal, this new site has tremendous potential,” Evans said.
Researchers also uncovered Kimberella, an organism thought to be an early relative of mollusks. It has a muscular foot used for scraping food from the ocean floor and could be the oldest known bilaterian. Another interesting fossil is the Eoandromeda, which may be an ancient comb jelly with eight spiral arms.
“Not only is this new site highly diverse, but also it is from a part of the rock succession where we have previously lacked fossil remains,” said study co-author Justin Strauss, an associate professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences from Dartmouth. “This is really exciting. Given our understanding of the regional geology in northwestern Canada, there is great potential here to revisit our understanding of Ediacaran Earth history.”
The fossils also challenge assumptions about where early animals first evolved. Scientists had previously believed shallow coastal waters were the main environment for early animal life. However, the Canadian fossils suggest otherwise, indicating that these organisms lived in deeper marine settings.
Evans believes the results “suggest a pattern where evolutionary innovation begins in deeper environments and later spreads toward the coast.”
“We think of the deep ocean as a dark, inhospitable place, but it is also relatively stable, with few fluctuations in things like temperature and oxygen essential to most animal life,” Evans said. “This stability may have provided key opportunities to support early animal life.”
Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and the founder of VOCAB Communications. She currently appears on The Discovery Channel and Max and hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on YouTube and on all audio podcast streaming platforms. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton, Instagram: @BeingChrissyNewton, and chrissynewton.com. To contact Chrissy with a story, please email chrissy @ thedebrief.org.
A newly identified prehistoric crocodile relative, Eosphorosuchus lacrimosa, was discovered alongside another croc species in New Mexico fossils dating back 210 million years. Around 210 million years ago, two crocodile relatives about the size of modern jackals stood together along a humid riverbank in what is now northern New Mexico. One of them, Hesperosuchus agilis, [...] 
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