New Miocene Tooth Fossil is Smallest Primate Specimen Found!
- By Maggie
Scientists found the rare primate tooth, only slightly larger than the head of a pin, after sorting through over 1200kg of sediment dug out of a Miocene conglomerate deposit layer in the Amazon River basin in Peru. The species was given the name Parvimico materdei, genus ‘Parvimico’ from Latin ‘parvus’ (tiny) and ‘mico’ (monkey in Spanish and Portuguese), and species ‘materdei’ referencing the Río Alto Madre de Dios where the fossil was found. Based on the shape of this monkey’s tooth, it was most likely a frugivore, meaning it mostly ate fruits, vegetables, roots, shoots, nuts and seeds; although it may have also eaten insects.
Figure 3. Left M1 of Parvimico materdei gen. et sp. nov. (IPVF-5000, holotype) from the Early Miocene (Santacrucian SALMA) of Alto Madre de Dios locality AMD-45, Peruvian Amazonia: A) stereopair in occlusal view; B) mesial view; C) lingual view; D) distal view. E) buccal view. (via R.F. Kay et al. / Journal of Human Evolution 134 (2019) 102628)
The Miocene epoch, about 23 to 5 million years ago (mya) We are currently living in the Holocene epoch.
The layer of rock from which this tiny monkey was found was deposited around 17 to 18 million years ago in a similar environment to the current Amazon River basin. The conglomerate deposit also contained fossil fragments of small rodents, marsupials, large early ungulates, sloths, fish, lizards and invertebrates.
This find is particularly useful to the continued efforts to fill in the fossil record between early and recent species of primates, and expand our understanding of human evolution.
For more info and full paper:
Kay, Richard F (2019), “Parvimico materdei gen. et sp. nov.: A new platyrrhine from the Early Miocene of the Amazon Basin, Peru” sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jhevol.2019.05.016