11.9 million-year-old fossil provides insights into human
evolution
Researchers who unearthed the fossil specimen of an ape
skeleton in Spain in 2002 assigned it a new genus and species, Pierolapithecus
catalaunicus. They estimated that the ape lived about 11.9 million years ago,
arguing that it could be the last common ancestor of modern great apes:
chimpanzees, orangutans, bonobos, gorillas and humans. Now, a University of
Missouri integrative anatomy expert says the shape of the specimen’s pelvis
indicates that it lived near the beginning of the great ape evolution, after
the lesser apes had started to develop separately but before the great ape
species began to diversify.