The discovery suggests our ancestors lost their tails suddenly, rather than gradually, which aligns with what scientists have found in the fossil record. The study authors posit that the mutation randomly might have cropped up in a single ape around 20 million years ago, and was passed on to offspring.
Perhaps being tailless was a boon to the apes, and the genetic mutation spread like wildfire. Corryn Wetzel is a freelance science journalist based in Brooklyn.
Her work has also appeared in Audubon magazine, National Geographic and others. Here is a hi-res version of the Barbary Macaque for you — copyright by Jonas Stenstrom. Barbary macaques are unique in that they lack a tail.
True apes include gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, gibbons, and humans. Normally these animals eat primarily fruit and insects, but since they live so close to humans in certain areas, they have picked up the bad habit of stealing food from unwary tourists. Even if this may seem funny at the time, feeding the monkeys has lead to some aggressive attacks and should be discouraged.
So pack your food well and hold on to your belongings; these monkeys are smart! The reasons for their decline are habitat destruction mainly logging and local farmers seeing them as pests and actively trying to get rid of them. Their population, once an extensive and continuous distribution across northern Africa, is now fragmented into smaller patches and forests in mainly Algeria, Morocco, and Libya.
Jonas is one of the co-founders and lead producers of Untamed Science. He has a background as a marine biologist and science communicator. Jonas has spent several years travelling and documenting nature around the world.
He is also the director for the Untamed Science Europe branch and international projects. Biodiversity Barbary Macaque. Europe's only non-human primate lives on Gibraltar Macaca sylvanus The Barbary macaque is the only species of macaque found outside of Asia.
Choose one of the following categories to see related pages: African animals , Monkeys and Apes. Share this Page. You can follow Jonas Stenstrom Twitter. Common Name: Barbary Macaque. Classification Kingdom:. Species Range. Science Newsletter:. Full List of our Videos. Teaching Biology? How to Make Science Films. Read our Wildlife Guide.
On the Trail of the Egret. Tips for Shooting Smoke Grenade Photos. Pacific Sleeper Shark: Giant of the Deep. The Burmese Python - A docile ish giant. Australia's Most Dangerous Creatures. White-nosed Syndrome in Bats. Most proposed explanations involve tails being a disadvantage when early apes started moving in a different way, such as walking upright on branches.
But fossils suggest the first tail-less apes still walked on all fours, says Ward. Xia and Yanai think there must have been a strong advantage to losing tails because this mutation does also have a disadvantage. Some mice developed spinal abnormalities resembling spina bifida. They speculate that the relatively high rate of spina bifida in people is a lingering relic of the loss of our tails all those millions of years ago.
Reference: bioXriv, DOI: Sign up to Our Human Story , a free monthly newsletter on the revolution in archaeology and human evolution. Read more: Did apes first walk upright on two legs in Europe, not Africa? Trending Latest Video Free. Covid-resistant people point way to universal coronavirus vaccine How Minecraft is helping children with autism make new friends Will a scramble to mine metals undermine the clean energy revolution?
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