New found fossils belong to new great ape species Chororapithecus abyssinicus 10,5 + million years

Hi all,

Again new evidence will shatter the old theory that human and ape splitted around eight million years ago.

Nine fossilised teeth found in Ethiopia are from a previously unknown species of great ape, Nature journal reports




The new evidence will add an incredible 2,5 +million years to it perhaps even more.

Read the full news here:
news.bbc.co.uk...

Nando out!



[edit on 8/23/2007 by PPLwakeUP]

Good post, i saw this article also on www.nature.com. Bit of extra information at the second link that you might find interesting.

www.nature.com

The team argues that the gorilla's divergence date from the human lineage is not about 8 million years ago as previously surmised (S. Kumar et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA102, 18842–18847; 2005), but "greater than 10 to 11 million years ago" on the basis of the age of the new species.

www.nature.com

The combined evidence suggests that Chororapithecus may be a basal member of the gorilla clade, and that the latter exhibited some amount of adaptive and phyletic diversity at around 10–11 Myr ago.