Penn State researchers have unearthed the cranium of a fossil ape from Shuitangba, a Miocene site in Yunnan Province located in China. The cranium of the fossil ape (Lufengpithecus) is a significant find, according to team member Nina Jablonski, professor of Anthropology at Penn State. This fossil is the remains of a juvenile ape. Juvenile crania of apes and hominins are tremendously rare in fossil records, especially those of infants and young juveniles, according to Jablonski. This is only the second find of a juvenile cranium fossil on record from the entire Miocene period, which existed 23-25 million years ago. Both are from the late Miocene sites of Yunnan Province. The site, Shuitangba, from where this cranium was retrieved, is over six million years old, which denotes the end of the Miocene epoch when apes had turned into extinct species in most of Eurasia. Remains of the fossil monkey (Mesopithecus) have also been found in Shuitangba, which portrays the earliest existence of monkeys in East Asia. "The preservation of the new cranium is excellent, with only minimal post-depositional distortion," Jablonski said. Read more http://www.scienceworldreport.com/a...lised-skull-juvenile-ape-discovered-china.htm
