Egyptian ape fossil challenges East African origins of living apes

The fossil was recovered from Wadi Moghra in northern Egypt by an international team from the Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center and the University of Southern California. The study, published on March 26 in the journal Science, used advanced statistical techniques to examine the fossil's place on the evolutionary tree.

For decades, scientists believed that early apes and their close relatives were concentrated primarily in regions farther south in Africa. The gap in the fossil record helped shape prevailing theories about ape evolution, and the new discovery may help explain what was missing from this picture.

The lower jaw of Masripithecus is notably sturdy, with large canine and premolar teeth and molars with rounded, texture-rich chewing surfaces. Researchers interpret this as evidence of a flexible, mainly fruit-based diet, with the ability to process tougher foods like nuts or seeds. “This flexibility would have helped Masripithecus to thrive at a time when climatic changes were leading to more pronounced seasonality in northern Africa and Arabia,” said Shorouq Al-Ashqar, a researcher at the Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center and first author of the study.

The study's senior author, Hesham Sallam, explained the rationale behind the long search. "We spent five years searching for this kind of fossil because, when we look closely at the early ape family tree, it becomes clear that something is missing -- and North Africa holds that missing piece," Sallam said.

The researchers' Bayesian analyses suggest that Masripithecus is more closely related to living apes than any known ape species from the Early Miocene of East Africa. This prompted co-author Erik Seiffert of the University of Southern California to reconsider his own career-long assumptions. "For my entire career, I considered it probable that the common ancestor of all living apes lived in or around East Africa. But this new discovery, and our new and novel analyses of hominoid phylogeny and biogeography, now strongly challenge that idea."

The researchers emphasise that they are not claiming Masripithecus was a direct ancestor of humans or necessarily the direct ancestor of living apes, but its position on the family tree provides evidence about where the broader ancestral lineage may have originated. The findings suggest that northern Africa and the Middle East may have been an important centre of evolutionary diversification.

The team acknowledges that much remains unknown, as only part of the animal’s jaw has been recovered. Additional fossils could provide a more complete picture of how this ancient species lived, and further exploration of North Africa and the Middle East could reveal more pieces of the early ape puzzle.