Alophia, the toothy key to Old World monkey evolution

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A new genus of Old World monkey has been described from teeth originating from the Miocene of Kenya and given the name Alophia metios ("Metis' without crest"). The genus name originates from the fact that the teeth of the new genus lack cross lophs, while the species name originates from Metis, the Greek goddess of crafty thought and wisdom who prophesied that her descendants would be more powerful than her. The new genus fills in the gap between tooth evidence of monkeys from 19 million and 25 million years ago. Due to the primitive nature of the teeth, revealed by their complete lack of cross lophs, they were believed to be the teeth of a pig until scientists were able to determine that they belonged to a monkey through other unique dental features. The teeth also reveal how the diet of monkeys changed over the course of their evolution, as the lack of cross lophs would make it more difficult to eat the leaves that were frequently consumed by monkeys younger than 19 million year old, with Alophia eating a diet of hard fruits, seeds, and nuts. This reveals that the specific teeth shape of modern monkeys did not appear when the group originated, but only appeared further down their evolutionary line. Here is an image of the teeth used to describe the new genus, as well as a link to the paper describing it.



Paper (open access!): https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/03/05/1815423116