- Paleontological and Anthropological mysteries,
link -->New World monkey The mystery here is how did monkeys get from the old world(Africa/EurAsia) to the New World Americas? The link indicated points out the wildest idea, that monkey's actually rafted their way across the, then, smaller distance between Africa and South America. The other alternative is that there must have been a land bridge due to lower sea levels. In the end, they say the Monkey's rafted from one island to another! The question becomes, why don't they raft around anymore?
I recently saw a tweet of a Gorilla sized Lemur. Below are pictures of today's Lemurs.
These were along the line to primates millions before the first bipedal Australopithacines. A fossil a Archaeoindris,
The gorilla sized Lemur, or Archaoindrus appear to be related to the also now extinct Sloths.
When I heard of this, I wanted to get back to the Balboa park 'Museum of Man' museum in San Diego, where I remember seeing this giant something. I finally did so a couple of days ago. What I found was a Gigantopithacine.
Gigantopithacus,
In fact, this is a picture of the Museum stuffed thing(I'm forgetting what they call stuffed animals) in the San Diego museum of man. What the info they give on it says is that it went extinct 400,000 years ago . . . contemporaneous with Homo Erectus!
The Wiki points out something even larger - Gigantopithacus Blacki. Once again, a picture from the wiki of Gigantopithacus,
The wiki says that G. Blacki went extinct in Asia 100,000 years ago - contemporaneous with Homo Sapiens!
- A primate species on the path towards science/technology dependent species like 'Homo Sapiens'? - Pan troglodytes verus, the latin name of a western Africa subspecies of Chimpanzee does a few odd behaviors compared to the rest.
I for one have noted that Homo Erectus and other related species of it's time, lived in caves, and that most primates I've ever heard of don't. Cave dwelling seems to be a behavior suggesting unusual intelligence over other life(obviously there's things like bats, some cats/bears and so on); but, living in a cave can provide a place to think where on the outside, one is so busy worrying about this/that predator, or bugs or weather . . . in a cave, one doesn't have that much to worry about. The mind can wander around a bit more.
This cave dwelling chimpanzee also uses spears. I've heard of little sticks to dig out ants, and I would argue that is technological(some people don't); but a spear? That's a bit more of a technology that is indisputable.
Another odd behavior noted in this wiki --> Pan troglodytes verus - another species evolving down the line towards science/technlogy intelligence? , is swimming. Most primates, if one of their's falls into a lake, will just scream and run around on the outside, and the one that falls in the lake just drowns. Swimming in a lake is a sign of intelligence; the abilty of a species to do something it's not evolved for.
This species is apparently endangered!
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