Science Monkeys 'may be evolving into new human-like race' as study finds primates leaving trees

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SlyPokerDog

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Somewhere between three and four million years ago, mankind’s most distant ancestors stopped swinging in trees and started walking on the ground.

And now that same process is happening again.

Monkey and lemur species that have lived in trees for countless millennia are beginning to spend increasing amounts of time on the forest floor in response to deforestation and climate change.

A study based on more than 150,000 hours of observations of 47 tree-dwelling primate species living across almost 70 sites in Madagascar and the Americas has shown the change in habitat is a global trend.

Giuseppe Donati from Oxford Brookes University says the the tree-dwellers are being forced to the ground to seek shade and water as temperatures in the forest continue to rise.

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He told New Scientist: “In most tropical countries where these species live, humans log the forest.

“This creates gaps and it opens the canopy of the forest. That causes an increase in temperature."

He added the deforestation “is working together with climate change” to drive the animals into seeking out new habitats.

One example he identified was the bamboo lemur from Madagascar. They, like most lemur species, live almost all of their lives in trees.

But in the south of Madagascar where the forest canopy is becoming increasingly thinned-out, he says bamboo lemurs have taken to grazing on the grasslands – “a bit like little cows”.

While it’s not known for certain what drove our most distant ancestors to abandon the trees and start wandering the African savannah, the change in habitat is widely believed to have been driven by climate change.

However, these current changes are taking place far more rapidly than the natural fluctuations in the Earth’s climate that have happened in the past, and our monkey cousins will struggle to adapt the way we did.


Timothy Eppley, from the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, says: “None of the species we studied are likely to fully transition to a terrestrial lifestyle. It’s simply not a viable long-term outcome to happen in such a short period of time.”

He says if tree-dwelling monkeys like lemurs are to be saved from the new mass extinction currently decimating the planet's biodiversity, “we need to actively protect the forest habitat that we currently have”.

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/monkeys-may-evolving-new-human-28219168
 
That's interesting as humans seem to simultaneously doing the opposite and devolving into more ape like creatures, with a shockingly large percentage of them seem to follow an orange orangutan swamp dwelling creature. Maybe in the not too distant future there will be a time in which lemurs and monkeys are more advanced than a large portion of the human race, and at the pace we're going it may not be too long.
 
Yes. Soon they will be able to understand "the new radical Republican propaganda" and contribute to the voting base.
 
That's interesting as humans seem to simultaneously doing the opposite and devolving into more ape like creatures, with a shockingly large percentage of them seem to follow an orange orangutan swamp dwelling creature. Maybe in the not too distant future there will be a time in which lemurs and monkeys are more advanced than a large portion of the human race, and at the pace we're going it may not be too long.
Every election can prove that.
 
Somewhere between three and four million years ago, mankind’s most distant ancestors stopped swinging in trees and started walking on the ground.

And now that same process is happening again.

Monkey and lemur species that have lived in trees for countless millennia are beginning to spend increasing amounts of time on the forest floor in response to deforestation and climate change.

A study based on more than 150,000 hours of observations of 47 tree-dwelling primate species living across almost 70 sites in Madagascar and the Americas has shown the change in habitat is a global trend.

Giuseppe Donati from Oxford Brookes University says the the tree-dwellers are being forced to the ground to seek shade and water as temperatures in the forest continue to rise.

p:nth-of-type(6)","type":"performPlaceholder","relativePos":"after"}" data-placeholder-placeholder="" data-response-start="845.6000000238419" data-type="placeholder" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-size: 16px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;">
He told New Scientist: “In most tropical countries where these species live, humans log the forest.

“This creates gaps and it opens the canopy of the forest. That causes an increase in temperature."

He added the deforestation “is working together with climate change” to drive the animals into seeking out new habitats.

One example he identified was the bamboo lemur from Madagascar. They, like most lemur species, live almost all of their lives in trees.

But in the south of Madagascar where the forest canopy is becoming increasingly thinned-out, he says bamboo lemurs have taken to grazing on the grasslands – “a bit like little cows”.

While it’s not known for certain what drove our most distant ancestors to abandon the trees and start wandering the African savannah, the change in habitat is widely believed to have been driven by climate change.

However, these current changes are taking place far more rapidly than the natural fluctuations in the Earth’s climate that have happened in the past, and our monkey cousins will struggle to adapt the way we did.


Timothy Eppley, from the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, says: “None of the species we studied are likely to fully transition to a terrestrial lifestyle. It’s simply not a viable long-term outcome to happen in such a short period of time.”

He says if tree-dwelling monkeys like lemurs are to be saved from the new mass extinction currently decimating the planet's biodiversity, “we need to actively protect the forest habitat that we currently have”.

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/monkeys-may-evolving-new-human-28219168
I used to love climbing trees when I was a young boy so what does your post say about me? Oh, and I love bananas.
 
We'll naturally want to interbreed with the new quasi-humans.
Announcing my new dating app, GreatApes.com!
If you can climb a tree, you join for free!

barfo
And we don't monkey around.
 
If monkeys are truly smart they'll skip the human-like part of evolution altogether. Could be they also realize humans are going to cut down the trees they live in now so they are just adapting to a threat.
 
I thought it was interesting that elephants are having babies that don't have tusks given how many elephants are killed for the damned things the species evolves into a tuskless one.
 
Yes. Soon they will be able to understand "the new radical Republican propaganda" and contribute to the voting base.

I can see Fox making some outlandish statements about this being a Democratic conspiracy to help monkeys evolve and vote for Democrats. Next they are going to start passing laws prohibiting monkeys from being able to vote in red states.
 
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