Purgatorius mckeeveri - ancient primate that lived alongside T. rex

[FfFfFfFF 58,129]

Shortly after an asteroid strike triggered a cataclysmic extinction event 66 million years ago, a group of mammals with a proclivity for climbing trees and eating fruit began to thrive. These animals—the early relatives of primates—would give rise to a lineage that led to the first monkeys, including great apes such as gorillas, chimpanzees, and eventually, humans.

Now, scientists have discovered fossils of the oldest known primate among a cache of unusual teeth tucked away in a museum drawer for decades. Some of these teeth, recently described in the journal Royal Society Open Science, belonged to the new species Purgatorius mckeeveri, a pint-sized precursor to modern primates.

Purgatorius, named after the Purgatory Hills in Montana, is known only from North American fossils. Its teeth suggest that it ate specialized diets of insects and fruits that varied across species.

The discovery also bolsters a theory that the ancestors of primates lived alongside the dinosaurs—and somehow survived the extinction event that killed off about three-quarters of life on Earth.

The late paleontologist William Clemens, a co-author on the new study, is credited with digging up 50,000 of those specimens—including the recently described Purgatorius teeth. Clemens was a prolific fossil hunter, specializing in the evolution of small mammals, who first began working in the Hell Creek Formation of northeastern Montana in the 1970s.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/did-ancient-primates-walk-alongside-dinosaurs-new-evidence-backs-up-theory

https://scienceblog.com/521310/our-earliest-primate-ancestors-rapidly-spread-after-dinosaur-extinction/

[Lottie Winters 1,628]

Man ancient times were so like interesting. The Mesozoic Era was lit AF. 

[PunkTheFunk 125,703]

1 hour ago, FfFfFfFF said:

These animals—the early relatives of primates—would give rise to a lineage that led to the first monkeys, including great apes such as gorillas, chimpanzees, and eventually, humans.

So this is our 2,648,927x great grandmother

1 hour ago, FfFfFfFF said:

I have her nose