{"id":1637,"date":"2017-03-16T12:00:51","date_gmt":"2017-03-16T19:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/keck.usc.edu\/news\/newfound-primate-teeth-fill-a-hole-in-the-evolutionary-tree-of-life\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T18:38:48","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T02:38:48","slug":"newfound-primate-teeth-fill-a-hole-in-the-evolutionary-tree-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/keck.usc.edu\/news\/newfound-primate-teeth-fill-a-hole-in-the-evolutionary-tree-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Newfound primate teeth fill a hole in the evolutionary tree of life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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\n\n \n Press Release<\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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Newfound primate teeth fill a hole in the evolutionary tree of life<\/h1>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
\n \n March 16, 2017<\/span>\n <\/div>\n \n \n
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The new species Ramadapis sahnii existed 11 million to 14 million years ago and is a member of the ancient Sivaladapidae primate family. It consumed leaves and was about the size of a house cat. (Photo\/Sheena Lad)<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n \n \n \n\n<\/div>\n \n\n <\/div><\/div>\n\r\n\r\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Fossil hunters have found part of an ancient primate jawbone related to lemurs \u2014 the primitive primate group distantly connected to monkeys, apes and humans, a Keck School of Medicine of USC researcher said.
\nBiren Patel, PhD, associate professor of clinical cell and neurobiology, has been digging for fossils in a paleontologically rich area of Kashmir in northern India for six years. Although paleontologists have scoured this region for a century, relics of small extinct primates were rarely found or studied.<\/p>\n

\nScientists named the new species Ramadapis sahnii<\/em> and said that it existed 11 million to 14 million years ago. It is a member of the ancient Sivaladapidae<\/em> primate family, consumed leaves and was about the size of a house cat, said Patel, co-author of the new study in the Journal of Human Evolution<\/em>.
\n\u201cAmong the primates, the most common ones in the Kashmir region are from a genus called Sivapithecus<\/em>, which were ancestral forms of orangutans,\u201d Patel said. \u201cThe fossil we found is from a different group on the primate family tree \u2014 one that is poorly known in Asia. We are filling an ecological and biogeographical gap that wasn\u2019t really well documented. Every little step adds to the understanding of our human family tree because we\u2019re also primates.\u201d\n<\/div>\n
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\"Lemur\"
Modern lemur<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

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\nThe last primate found in the area was 38 years ago. So, in addition to being a new species, this is the first primate fossil found in the area in decades.
\n\u201cIn the past, people were interested in searching for big things \u2014 things they could show off to other people,\u201d Patel said. \u201cA lot of the small fossils were not on their radar.\u201d
\nThe inch-and-a-quarter partial mandible belongs to a primate weighing less than 11 pounds that had outlived its other adapidae cousins found in North America, Europe and Africa by millions of years.
\n\u201cNew primates are always a hot topic, and this one is the first of its kind from its area in Asia, which has significant consequences for understanding primate evolution in the Old World,\u201d said Michael Habib, PhD, assistant professor of clinical cell and neurobiology at the Keck School who was not involved in the study.
\nThe question that remains is how the ecosystem in northern India supported this species when its relatives elsewhere were disappearing or had already gone extinct. Future fieldwork and recovering more fossil primates will help answer this question.
\n\u201cPeople want to know about human origins, but to fully understand human origins, you need to understand all of primate origins, including the lemurs and these Sivaladapids<\/em>,\u201d Patel said. \u201cLemurs and sivaladapids<\/em> are sister groups to what we are \u2014 the anthropoids \u2014 and we are all primates.\u201d
\nResearchers from Hunter College of the City University of New York, New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology, Arizona State University, Stony Brook University and Panjab University also contributed to this study, which was supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, the Institute of Human Origins and funding from some of the involved universities.
\n\u2014 Zen Vuong<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":168,"featured_media":1638,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[619,20],"class_list":["post-1637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-release","tag-department-of-medical-education","tag-research"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNewfound primate teeth fill a hole in the evolutionary tree of life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/keck.usc.edu\/news\/newfound-primate-teeth-fill-a-hole-in-the-evolutionary-tree-of-life\/\" 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