[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Sign-in] [Mail] [Setup] [Help]
Status: Not Logged In; Sign In
|
Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: This ancient Chinese tomb held a royal, her extinct ape — and a warning This ancient Chinese tomb held a royal, her extinct ape — and a warning Ben Guarino 7 hrs ago © Provided by WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post A long-forgotten species of ape has been found buried in a 2,300-year-old tomb. It's a type of gibbon, which scientists named Junzi imperialis. Gibbons are the smallest apes, chatty and as lanky-limbed as Kermit the Frog. They're also more closely related to humans than they are to any monkey. And humans, the scientists say, are the likely agents of these gibbons' extinction. Archaeologists excavated the burial site, in the ancient Chinese capital city of Chang’an, now part of modern Xi'an, in 2004. “I'm afraid we don't know much about the tomb,” said Helen Chatterjee, a biology professor at University College London and a co-author of the study, published in Science, that describes the gibbon. The tomb is about 2,300 or 2,200 years old, and is possibly the final resting place of Lady Xia, grandmother of the Qin dynasty's first emperor. The tomb contained several dead exotic animals in 12 pits, including a leopard and a bear, befitting a member of the ancient Chinese elite. Among these remains, excavators found a small jawbone and skull with prominent canine teeth. The gibbon bones wound up in a museum drawer until Samuel Turvey, at the Zoological Society of London, plucked them out of obscurity. “It's just luck that Sam found this specimen and immediately suspected it was a gibbon,” Chatterjee said. Turvey scanned the gibbon bones and sent the images to Chatterjee. With their students, the scientists began to pick apart the gibbon's features. Their analysis “revealed it to be significantly different from living gibbons,” Chatterjee said. Junzi imperialis had a steeper forehead than other gibbons, narrower cheekbones and more slender brow ridges, said Alejandra Ortiz, an anthropologist at Arizona State University and a co-author of the report. Its molars were unusually sized, too. All of these features combined, the authors say, make a strong case that the gibbon is not just a new species but a new genus. (A genus, you'll recall, ranks above a species — it's the Homo in Homo sapiens.) Living gibbons are split into 20 species over four genera. “There’s good reason to believe this represents a new species of gibbon,” said anthropologist Paul Garber, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois who has studied gibbons in China and was not involved with this report. Whether it's a new genus is tough to say, he said, based on one specimen. What's more critical, in Garber's mind, is the gibbon's extinction. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 1.
#1. To: BTP Holdings (#0)
Gibbons are so lucky to have humans to kill them off, destroy their habitat, and measure their biological history. "A new species of gibbon", yah.
There are no replies to Comment # 1. End Trace Mode for Comment # 1.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest |
||
|
[Home]
[Headlines]
[Latest Articles]
[Latest Comments]
[Post]
[Sign-in]
[Mail]
[Setup]
[Help]
|
||