- An international team of researchers has announced the discovery of new fossils from the highlands of Ethiopia. The fossils fill a long-standing gap in scientists' understanding of the evolution of African mammals, the so-called "missing years" from 24 million to 32 million years ago.
The results of the US-Ethiopian team's work in Ethiopia are reported in this week's issue of the journal 'Nature', according to a press release published yesterday by the US government agency National Science Foundation (NSF).
- The work of this team continues to reveal the extremely rich fossil record encased in East Africa's rocks, comments Rich Lane, programme director in NSF's division of earth sciences, which funded the research. "It also sheds light on the role pre-modern animals played in establishing the worldwide distribution of mammals today."
The dynamics of animal populations from 24 million to 32 million years ago has long stood as one of the most poorly known for all of Africa and Arabia, says John Kappelman, a paleontologist at the University of Texas and the project's leader.
During that time period, today's Red Sea had not yet begun to rift open and Africa and Arabia were still joined as a single continent that was isolated from the other landmasses by surrounding oceans and seas. "These are the 'missing years' for Afro-Arabia," Mr Kappelman adds, "and what, exactly, happened to mammals during this 8-million-year period has long remained a mystery to science."
Unlike well-publicised paleontological work reported from much younger rocks in Ethiopia's fossil-rich Rift Valley, this project is based in the highlands of the north-western part of the country. The rugged terrain is some 2,000 meters in elevation and consists of massive flows of basalt lava that poured out of the Earth about 30 million years ago. The sediments that contain the fossils were deposited on top of these basalts and are now exposed among agricultural fields in stream and gully cuts.
- Geologists have known about the sediments in this region for nearly 100 years, says scientist Mulugeta Feseha of Addis Ababa University, "but it wasn't until we began our study that fossil mammals were discovered."
The international team relied on high-resolution satellite imagery to find sedimentary rocks located far from the nearest roads and then recorded the position of the fossils with GPS technology. Peter Copeland, of the University of Houston, determined the ages of the volcanic rocks found with the sediments to be 27 million years old.
Several of the newly discovered fossil mammals mark the earliest evidence for some of today's African mammals, while others represent the last holdouts of species thought to be extinct long before. The team was surprised for example, to find several species of primitive proboscideans - very distant cousins of today's elephants that were thought to be long extinct. Even more surprising, they were found living side by side with more advanced species that are the ancestors of today's elephants.
- The story of elephant evolution is one that we have long suspected to have occurred entirely in Africa, says scientist William Sanders of the University of Michigan, "but these new fossils provide the evidence that we needed to lock down this story. These more advanced elephants were much smaller than today's African elephants," he continued, "but at nearly 1,000 kg—about that of a medium-sized Texas longhorn—they were still a bit too big to keep in your backyard."
Some of the other fossil mammals are even more bizarre. Perhaps the most unusual of these is the arsinoithere, an animal larger than today's rhino with a pair of massive bony horns on its snout. This species is also a holdover from much earlier times, but the new discoveries show that it too survived through the period of the missing years. "If this animal was still alive today it would be the central attraction at the zoo," says paleontologist Tab Rasmussen of Washington University.
According to the US-Ethiopian team, the new discoveries from the Ethiopian highlands show that mammals of Afro-Arabia continued to evolve and produce new species on this isolated continent during the missing years, but the clock was ticking for many of the more primitive forms.
At about 24 million years, ago the Afro-Arabian continent began to dock with Europe and Asia, says Mr Kappelman, "and we believe that event set into motion both the eventual extinction of the more primitive species as well as the modernisation of the rest of the African fauna."
The arsinoitheres and more primitive proboscideans became extinct, perhaps being out-competed by the invading species, while the ancestors of today's elephants flourished in spite of the new immigrants and managed to carry their adaptations out of Afro-Arabia to successfully colonize the rest of the world.
- More fossil localities closer in age to this major event are needed to fully evaluate the competing hypotheses, says Mr Kappelman, "and we are now convinced that the fossils are out there waiting to be found."
The scientist team behind these discoveries was composed of researchers from several US universities, including the University of Texas, Washington University, and the University of Michigan, as well as Addis Ababa University and the National Museum, both in Ethiopia. The project is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Geographic Society, the Leakey Foundation and the Ethiopian Ministry of Culture.
afrol News - It is called "financial inclusion", and it is a key government policy in Rwanda. The goal is that, by 2020, 90 percent of the population is to have and actively use bank accounts. And in only four years, financial inclusion has doubled in Rwanda.
afrol News - The UN's humanitarian agencies now warn about a devastating famine in Sudan and especially in South Sudan, where the situation is said to be "imploding". Relief officials are appealing to donors to urgently fund life-saving activities in the two countries.
afrol News - Fear is spreading all over West Africa after the health ministry in Guinea confirmed the first Ebola outbreak in this part of Africa. According to official numbers, at least 86 are infected and 59 are dead as a result of this very contagious disease.
afrol News - It is already a crime being homosexual in Ethiopia, but parliament is now making sure the anti-gay laws will be applied in practical life. No pardoning of gays will be allowed in future, but activist fear this only is a signal of further repression being prepared.
afrol News / Africa Renewal - Ethiopia's ambitious plan to build a US$ 4.2 billion dam in the Benishangul-Gumuz region, 40 km from its border with Sudan, is expected to provide 6,000 megawatts of electricity, enough for its population plus some excess it can sell to neighbouring countries.
front page
| news
| countries
| archive
| currencies
| news alerts login
| about afrol News
| contact
| advertise
| español