When humans arrived on the scene, the dinosaurs had long since disappeared from the face of the Earth. However, recent discoveries suggest that the seed of human creation (and other primates) was already growing when powerful dinosaurs were still on the planet. Fossils of the oldest known life form of primates have been analyzed to find that they lived around 65.9 million years ago. For reference, dinosaurs disappeared 66 million years ago. Fossils belong to the genus purgatory which is recognized by most biologists as belonging to a group plesiadapiforme– the oldest known primate.
These small mammals were quite different from any of the successors we recognize today. Elaborating on the importance of this discovery – the oldest dated appearance of archaic primates – author Stephen Chester said: “It adds to our understanding of how the first primates separated from their competitors after the death of the dinosaurs.”
Based on the tooth-fossil analysis, the team estimates that these animals (which are the ancestors of all known primates, including monkeys, lemurs, and even humans) probably evolved by the end of the year. cretaceous– which means they lived with big dinosaurs. This discovery was called an important step in increasing “our understanding of the environmental, biological and social dependencies that eventually led to the evolution of primates,” according to Peter Tolias, dean of the School of Natural and Behavioral Sciences.
Recently, another paper established that the cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs was certainly an asteroid impact 66 million years ago. This means that whatever brought out the powerful dinos was survived by our ancestor and led to the eventual recovery of life on the planet.
Chester has been involved in numerous innovative primate discoveries. He co-authored a paper in 2015 that studied ankle bones purgatory and established that these primate ancestors living in trees survived the asteroid’s impact long after the dinosaurs disappeared.
Prior to this new discovery, the oldest known primate fossil was 55 million years ago. It belonged to a lemur-like mammal and was discovered in China in 2013. The animal was named Achilles Archicebus. (Long after all the dinosaurs disappeared). This study was published in the Royal Open Science Society.