Ancient Macaque Fossil Unearthed in Morocco, Dating Back 2.5 Million Years

The researchers from the Catalan Institute of Paleontology Miquel Crusafont (ICP), the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES-CERCA), the Rovira i Virgili University (URV), the Department of Geology, Faculty of Sciences of the University Mohammed 1ᵉʳ of Oujda and the National Institute of Archeology and Heritage Sciences (INSAP) published this discovery in the journal Human Evolution.

These are fossil remains belonging to macaques, indicates the site Diari Mes. "The six cercopithecid teeth dating back more than 2.5 million years have a morphology that allows them to be classified in the genus Macaca," specifies the same source. However, this classification is provisional. This macaque could be the ancestor of the Barbary macaque, the only macaque living in the wild on the African continent, particularly in Morocco, but also the only primate in Europe in the wild, in Gibraltar.

According to the researchers, the remains discovered made it possible to estimate the size of the macaques of that time, which should have weighed around 12 kg. As for the tooth morphology, it has made it possible to establish a similarity with that of current species in North Africa, such as the Barbary macaque or Macaca sylvanus.