Paleontologists have identified a new genus and species of fossil ape that lived about 17-18 million years ago in northern Egypt. The discovery suggests that the ancestors of modern apes — and humans — may have emerged not in East Africa, but at a crossroads between Africa and Eurasia.
Life reconstruction of Masripithecus moghraensis. Image credit: Mauricio Antón.
Today, it is widely accepted that the earliest apes (stem hominoids) originated in Afro-Arabia during the Oligocene epoch, more than 25 million years ago, and diversified there before spreading into Eurasia by roughly 14 to 16 million years ago, during the Miocene.
However, the emergence of modern apes — the group that includes all living species and their last common ancestor — remains uncertain, as fossils from this period are scarce, widely dispersed, and difficult to interpret.
This uncertainty is compounded by the uneven fossil record in Africa, where discoveries have been concentrated in only a few regions, leaving much of the potential ancient range of Miocene-age apes unexplored.
“The Early Miocene fossil record documenting hominoid evolution has long been restricted primarily to sites in East Africa, whereas contemporaneous North African sites have only yielded remains of cercopithecoid monkeys,” said Mansoura University paleontologist Shorouq Al-Ashqar and colleagues from Egypt and the United States.
The newly-discovered fossil ape lived 17-18 million years ago in what is now in the Wadi Moghra region of northern Egypt.
Named Masripithecus moghraensis, the species adds to our understanding of early ape diversity and evolution at a pivotal moment when Afro-Arabia was becoming connected to Eurasia, enabling the spread of species out of Africa.
“Although the new fossil material is limited to the lower jaw, it preserves a distinctive combination of features not seen in any other known ape from this time,” the researchers said.
“These include exceptionally large canine and premolar teeth, molar teeth with rounded and heavily textured chewing surfaces, and a notably robust jaw.”
“Together, they suggest that Masripithecus moghraensis was adapted for versatility,” they added.
“The study interprets its chewing anatomy as evidence of a flexible, mainly fruit-based diet, with the ability to process harder foods such as nuts or seeds when needed.”
To determine where Masripithecus moghraensis fits into the evolutionary tree of humans, the scientists employed a modern Bayesian ‘tip-dating’ approach, which incorporates both anatomical traits and fossil ages to estimate relationships and divergence times.
Their analysis suggests that the new species represents the stem hominoid that is most closely related to the lineage that ultimately gave rise to all living apes.
The findings support the notion that modern apes may have originated in northern Afro-Arabia, the Levant, or the eastern Mediterranean.
“We spent five years searching for this kind of fossil because, when we look closely at the early ape family tree, it becomes clear that something is missing — and North Africa holds that missing piece,” said Mansoura University paleontologist Hesham Sallam.
The results appear in the journal Science.
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Shorouq F. Al-Ashqar et al. 2026. An Early Miocene ape from the biogeographic crossroads of African and Eurasian Hominoidea. Science 391 (6792): 1383-1386; doi: 10.1126/science.adz4102