Why monkeys and apes took separate evolutionary paths has long been a mystery
and apes took separate evolutionary paths has long been a mystery. One widely held theory is that environmental changes that led to more open habitats drove a wedge between these animals, leading the ancestors of monkeys to make do with a less nutritious diet of leaves and those of modern apes to thrive upon fruits and seeds.
Best described as teeth that have crests running between their cusps, bilophodont molars are found in all members of the old world monkey family and play a pivotal part in helping these animals to chew leaves efficiently. Because the Kenyan fossil does not have these crests, Dr Kappelman and his colleagues believe it was much more likely to have fed on fruits and seeds.
Although Alophia, as the researchers have named the fossil, may just be an odd early monkey lineage that broke from its kin and later started eating fruit, it is also possible that this animal had teeth that were typical for monkeys of the time. If so, the monkey puzzle deepens: something other than a taste for leaves must have led them away from apes.
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