'Really weird and unexpected.” Researchers find primate-like fossils north of the Arctic Circle.
The Arctic was significantly warmer during that time. But creatures still had to adapt to extreme conditions such as long winter months without sunlight. These challenges make the presence of primate-like creatures in the Arctic “incredibly surprising,” says coauthor Chris Beard, a paleontologist at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. “No other primate or primate relative has ever been found this far north so far.
that largely fed on fruit . To this day, most primates — humans and few other outliers like Japan’s snow monkeys excepted — tend to stick to tropical and subtropical forests, largely found around the equator. Scientists have long debated whether this lineage can be considered true primates or whether they were simply close relatives. Regardless, it’s still “really weird and unexpected” to find primates or their relatives in the area, says Mary Silcox, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Toronto Scarborough.
had unusually strong jaws and teeth suited to eating hard foods, the researchers found. This may have helped these early primates feed on nuts and seeds over the winter, when fruit wasn’t as readily available.
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