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Tooth pushes back modern monkeys’ first ancestor three million years

By Guest PostMarch 23, 2013Nature, Scienceancestor, andrew hill, anthropologists, baboons, basal african monkeys, central kenya, cercopithecid family, christopher c gilbert, city, clayton stephenson, family victoriapithecidae, great rift valley, hunter college, james b rossie, lineage, macaques, million years ago, modern african monkeys, monkey family tree, new york, old world monkey, sallye stephenson, schwartz family foundation, stony brook university, teeth, tugen hills, vervet monkeys, yale university

The ancestor of all modern African monkeys was alive 3 million years earlier than previously thought and coexisted with members of a now-extinct branch of the monkey family tree, according to new evidence from anthropologists.

“We pushed back the origin of modern monkeys by a huge chunk of time,” said anthropologist Andrew Hill of Yale University, the senior researcher on the project. “This means there are all sorts of things we can think about. You can start to look at animal interactions that might have taken place.” (more…)

Pregnant Primates Miscarry When New Male Enters Group

By Guest PostFebruary 24, 2012Nature, Scienceamy lu, anthropology, baboons, bachelor males, breeding primate, bruce effect, clay wilton, eila roberts, ethiopia, female geladas, fertility, geladas, gestation, jacinta beehner, jared wadley, lactation, mammals, miscarriage, national park, offspring, old world monkeys, pregnant, reproduction, rodents, science express, simien mountains, thore bergman, unfamiliar male, university of michigan

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Pregnant female geladas show an unusually high rate of miscarriage the day after the dominant male in their group is replaced by a new male, a new University of Michigan study indicates.

The “Bruce effect” – in which pregnant females spontaneously miscarry after being exposed to an unfamiliar male – has been found repeatedly in laboratory rodents. However, no conclusive evidence for this effect had ever been demonstrated in a wild population prior to this study. Geladas are Old World monkeys that are close relatives of baboons. (more…)

Pity the Boss Man

By Guest PostJuly 21, 2011Nature, Scienceadult male baboons, alpha males, baboon groups, baboons, beta males, catherine markham, ecologists, female, fertilizations, glucocoricoids, human behavior and societal structures, jeanne altmann, kaye reed, Kenya, laurence gesquiere, male, national science foundation, princeton university, sexual consortship, sexual swelling, social hierarchy, social ranks in baboons, stress hormones

*Researchers find that being at the top may come at a high cost*

Ecologists at Princeton University recently discovered top-ranking male baboons exhibit higher levels of stress hormones than second-ranking males, suggesting that being at the top of a social hierarchy may be more costly than previously thought. (more…)

‘Ancient Hominid Males Stayed Home While Females Roamed’

By Guest PostJune 7, 2011Scienceantelope, australopithecus africanus, baboons, basalt, bipedal hominid species, bipedalism, darryl de ruiter, early hominids, ethiopian fossil, female teeth, fossilized teeth, gadabout gals, geological substrates, Germany, granite, high tech analysis, hominid family tree, hyraxes, julia lee thorp, laser ablation, leipzig, local geology, lucy, male hominid teeth, mammal teeth, matt sponheimer, max plank institute for evolutionary anthropology, paranthropus boisei, paranthropus robustus, quartzite, sandi copeland, sandstone, South Africa, south african savannah, sterkfontein and swartkans cave systems, strontium isotope, strontium isotope signatures, university of colorado boulder

The males of two bipedal hominid species that roamed the South African savannah more than a million years ago were stay-at-home kind of guys when compared to the gadabout gals, says a new high-tech study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.

The team, which studied teeth from a group of extinct Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus individuals from two adjacent cave systems in South Africa, found more than half of the female teeth were from outside the local area, said CU-Boulder adjunct professor and lead study author Sandi Copeland. In contrast, only about 10 percent of the male hominid teeth were from elsewhere, suggesting they likely grew up and died in the same area. (more…)

Tag Archives: baboons

Tooth pushes back modern monkeys’ first ancestor three million years

Pregnant Primates Miscarry When New Male Enters Group

Pity the Boss Man

‘Ancient Hominid Males Stayed Home While Females Roamed’