Monkeys accomplished a monumental task of migration eons before the two American continents joined together 3.5 million years ago. Scientists believe that monkey mariners resembling today’s capuchins crossed a hundred miles of open ocean some 21 million years ago to get from South America to North America. Japan Times reports: Scientists said on Wednesday they reached that conclusion based on the discovery of seven little teeth during excavations involving the Panama Canal’s expansion, showing monkeys had reached the North American continent far earlier than previously known. The teeth belonged to Panamacebus transitus, a previously unknown medium-size monkey species. South America at the time was secluded from other continents, with a strange array of mammals evolving in what 20th century American paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson called “splendid isolation.” How Panamacebus performed the feat is a bit mysterious. After all, seagoing simians seem somewhat suspicious. “Panama represents the southernmost extreme of the North American continent at that time,” said Jonathan Bloch, a vertebrate paleontology curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the University of Florida campus. “It may have swum across, but this would have required covering a distance of more than 100 miles, a difficult feat for sure. It’s more likely [...]
