Primates

A 47-million-year-old primate fossil that is so complete scientists can even tell what the animal's last meal was promises to shed new light on the earliest stages of evolution of the lineage that eventually led to humans, researchers said Tuesday. The unprecedented fossil of a lemur-like creature that probably weighed no more than 2 pounds when it was fully grown is remarkable because it is the most complete primate specimen ever obtained.

About 3,000 people, including laid-off executives and company bosses, applied for temporary jobs caring for animals at a zoo in central England. Twycross Zoo in Atherstone is home to lions, elephants and dozens of primates, and it advertised for temporary cleaners, cooks and park rangers. People who had held well-paid, skilled jobs were among the applicants.

Fossils recently found in Myanmar could prove that the common ancestors of humans, monkeys and apes evolved from primates in Asia, rather than Africa, researchers say. The pieces of 38-million-year-old jawbones and teeth found in 2005 show typical characteristics of primates, the researchers who found the fossils pointed out. Other scientists say it's too early to draw such conclusions. The findings were published Wednesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a London-based journal.

Chimps do it. Gorillas do it. Michael Phelps does it too. The exuberant dance of victory -- arms thrust toward the sky and chest puffed out at a defeated opponent -- turns out to be an instinctive trait of all primates -- humans included, according to research released Monday.

A team of researchers has deciphered the genome of the rhesus macaque, one of the most widely used primates in medical research because it is susceptible to many of the diseases that attack humans. Coming two years after the sequencing of the chimpanzee genome, the feat, reported today in the journal Science, provides new insight into what makes humans human.

An endangered primate at the Sacramento Zoo died unexpectedly last month. Jimmy, a 13-year-old golden-bellied mangabey, collapsed Dec. 29; veterinarians were unable to revive him, zoo officials said Thursday. Little is known about mangabeys, but they are thought to live in a small area in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The primates are considered endangered because of poaching and habitat loss. There are 19 golden-bellied mangabeys in North American zoos.

A small collection of 40-million-year-old teeth and jaw fragments suggests that one line of primates developed much longer ago than researchers had previously believed. The fossils, discovered in the Fayum desert region of Egypt, represent at least two early animals -- a small bushbaby called Saharagalago and a loris-like species called Karanisia. Bushbabies, lorises and lemurs, collectively called toothcombed prosimians, represent one of the three main groups of primates.

A dramatic decline in the number of gorillas and chimpanzees is occurring in western equatorial Africa, the last stronghold for great apes on the continent, according to researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society. In Gabon alone, the team found a 56% drop in the number of the primates from 1983 to 2000. They attributed the decline to outbreaks of the Ebola virus and to widespread regional civil unrest, which has led to the animals' slaughter.

Donald Lindburg, whose research led to the successful reproduction of pandas at the San Diego Zoo, has been honored as a distinguished primatologist by the American Society of Primatologists. Lindburg, 70, was honored this week for his lifelong contribution to the systematic study of endangered primates. He is a founding member of the society. As head of the zoo's giant panda conservation program, he researched panda reproduction behavior and panda birth and development.

Of all the things that distinguish humans and other primates -- thumbs, the ability to leap and forward-facing eyes -- it was the ability to grasp that evolved first, researchers reported in this week's issue of Science. A 56-million-year-old skeleton found in Wyoming shows that one of the earliest primate ancestors had an opposable big toe, allowing it to creep to the outermost branches of trees for nuts and fruit. It also probably kept a sharp eye out to avoid becoming someone else's meal.