Human ancestors lived on trees?
What were our ancestors like?
You probably know that human beings evolved from 'primates'
Primates – a group of mammals that include monkey and human beings – are among the early creatures that roamed the earth.
Primates have been around for millions of years. In fact, scientists recently found out that the earliest primates - Purgatorius were around even about 65 millions years ago!
That's a long time back! But that's not the big story.
Perhaps that's what Purgatorius- the ancient primates might have looked like (More like a squirrel, less like a monkey, isn't it?)
Found in Montana, United States of America, the Purgatorius was once suspected to be a ground animal.
The big news is that a new research shows that the earliest primates- the Purgatorius were also arboreal (tree-living)- and not ground animals.
Palaeontologists, or scientists who study fossils, had said that primates moved into a life in the trees after starting off on the ground.
How did scientists find out that this creature lived on trees and not on the ground?
Recently, they began to study the ankle bones of this squirrel-like animal. The ankle bones were found in the same region they found the teeth. They realized from the ankle bone that this small, rather light creature, lived on trees. It literally ate what it could find: insects and fruit.
What an idea! Finding out where an animal lived just by studying the ankle!
This finding is very important for people who study the evolution of Earth and its inhabitants. Human beings are always curious, and we want to find out everything about how we came about. Some of these researches can also help to understand survival and extinction of different species.
Photo attribution: Purgatorius PNAS.png and Purgatorius BW.jpg via wikimedia.org
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