A new Miocene ape and locomotion in the ancestor of great apes and humans

Boehme, Madelaine; Spassov, Nikolai; Fuss, Jochen; Troescher, Adrian; Deane, Andrew S.; Prieto, Jerome; Kirscher, Uwe; Lechner, Thomas und Begun, David R. (2019): A new Miocene ape and locomotion in the ancestor of great apes and humans. In: Nature, Bd. 575, Nr. 7783

Abstract

Many ideas have been proposed to explain the origin of bipedalism in hominins and suspension in great apes (hominids);however, fossil evidence has been lacking. It has been suggested that bipedalism in hominins evolved from an ancestor that was a palmigrade quadruped (which would have moved similarly to living monkeys), or from a more suspensory quadruped (most similar to extant chimpanzees)(1). Here we describe the fossil ape Danuvius guggenmosi (from the Allgau region of Bavaria) for which complete limb bones are preserved, which provides evidence of a newly identified form of positional behaviour-extended limb clambering. The 11.62-million-year-old Danuvius is a great ape that is dentally most similar to Dryopithecus and other European late Miocene apes. With a broad thorax, long lumbar spine and extended hips and knees, as in bipeds, and elongated and fully extended forelimbs, as in all apes (hominoids), Danuvius combines the adaptations of bipeds and suspensory apes, and provides a model for the common ancestor of great apes and humans.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Geowissenschaften > Department für Geo- und Umweltwissenschaften
• Themengebiete: 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 550 Geowissenschaften, Geologie
• ISSN: 0028-0836
• Sprache: Englisch