Recreation of several primate species from the Paleogene period depicting different postures and locomotor behaviors. From left to right and top to bottom: Dryomomys szalayi, Ignacius clarkforkensis, Cantius ralstoni, Notharctus robustior, and Omomys carteri. Roc Olivé / ©Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont. In collaboration with the Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología – Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad).

A research team from the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont, the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, the Naturhistorisches Museum Bern and the Université de Lyon has conducted a paleobiological study on the locomotor diversity of the first modern aspect primates. This work, that has analysed the navicular bone, located in the tarsal region, within the foot, suggests that these early species already displayed a wide range of locomotor repertoires, allowing them to exploit different niches in the arboreal milieu.

Adult and young Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) (Credit : "Macaca sylvanus" by Ouwesok under CC BY-NC 2.0 license)

A new article published in Journal of Human Evolution led by researchers from the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP), the Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES-CERCA), and the Universitat Rovira i Virgili describes six 2,5 million-years-old fossil macaque teeth from the site of Guefaït (northeast of Morocco). Tooth morphology ressembles that of the current African subspecies, which provides new clues about the dispersal of this species in the past. The research also highlights the absence of geladas in Guefaït.

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