The tiny primate fossil (estimated to weigh just half a pound when alive) was found in a coal mine and consisted of a single jawbone. The research team places the fossil to the Late Eocene, approximately 33-35 million years ago. Surprisingly, the teeth on the bone were unlike those of other anthropoids found in Asia, and suggest K. minuta ate fruit and gum, rather than the nuts and insects associated with other anthropoids. This, the researchers suggest, means that the little creature was likely part of group of anthropoids called amphipithecids, that lived throughout Southeast Asia and who all eventually went extinct. Fossil evidence in China shows anthropoids living in that area as early as 45 million years ago—the earliest fossils in Africa date back to just 38 million years ago, suggesting that the first anthropoids were in Asia, not Africa. How they could have made their way across the Tethys Sea that separated Asia from Africa at the time is still a mystery. Some suggest it may have been the result of a natural event, such as a monsoon that pushed natural barges carrying animals across the sea—which was larger than the Mediterranean is today. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-10-asian-early-anthropoid-thailand-coal.html#jCp Challenge out of Africa I wish the Australian from Dr. Karl could see this post
