Found in a Spanish landfill, the fossils of the extinct species Pierolapithecus catalaunicus may reveal important clues about our origins.
A composite of three images shows, from left, the great ape's cranium shortly after discovery, after initial preparation and after virtual reconstruction.
The apes of the Mid-Miocene also lived in woodlands that were far less hot and wet than the tropical forests where a small number of great apes now survive, all of them either endangered or critically endangered.About 9.6 million years ago, changes to the climate wiped out much of the evergreen forest habitats in Eurasia.
Kelsey D. Pugh, a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History and a lecturer at Brooklyn College, led the CT analysis of Pierolapithecus“One part of the reconstruction is that you have the CT scans, which are of this damaged specimen, and you need to segment out what is bone and what is rock,” Pugh said. “You have to make decisions about which fragment should stay with which other fragment.
In the torso, Pierolapithecus was closer to living apes and humans, with the upright posture that helps humans walk on two feet and lets apes climb and suspend from tree branches, said Almécija. “Monkeys have more of a primitive body , like a cat or a dog.”
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