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Experts from the Zoological Society of London, London's Natural History Museum, and the American Museum of Natural HistoryDNA samples from a now-extinct monkey called Xenothrix in an effort to understand why this monkey 's physicality is different from the monkeys of today. What they found was that Xenothrix is most similar to South America's titi monkeys (Callicebinae), and underwent huge evolutionary changes its existence.
Tea Xenothrix'S evolutionary change had much to do with the ecology of the Caribbean islands. The experts' findings, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that the Xenothrix'S ancestors colonized the Caribbean Islands more than once. About 11 million years ago after having fled to the island on natural vegetation rafts.
It's the island environment – one that had no mammal predators – that experts believe contributed to its unusual anatomical development.
"This new understanding of the evolutionary history of Xenothrix shows that evolution can take place when they are colonized, "said Professor Samuel Turvey from ZSL, co-author on the paper. "However, the extinction of Xenothrix, which evolved on an island without any native mammal predators, highlights the great vulnerability of single island biodiversity in the face of human impacts. "
Experts hypothesize that Xenothrix was a slow-moving tree with only a few teeth. It was shortened legs like a rodent and a similar thing to a kinkajou or a night monkey. Their relatives, the titi monkeys, are also small tree-dwellers. However, they are much more active, incredibly vocal, and have a lifespan of about 12 years in the wild.
"Ancient DNA indicates that the Jamaican monkey is really just a monkey with some unusual morphological features, not a wholly distinct branch of New World monkey," Ross MacPhee of the American Museum of Natural History's Mammalogy Department, co-authored the study , said. "Evolution can act in unexpected ways," producing miniature elephants, gigantic birds, and sloth-like primates. Such examples put a very different spin on the old cliché that 'anatomy is destiny.' "
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by Olivia Harvey, Earth.com Staff Writer
Image Credit: ZSL
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