Six new fossil species form 'snapshot' of Asian primates stressed by ancient climate change (KU - The University of Kansas)

(Source: KU - The University of Kansas) LAWRENCE - In a study to be published this week in the journal Science, researchers describe unearthing a 'mother lode' of a half-dozen fossil primate species in southern China. These primates eked out an existence just after the Eocene-Oligocene transition, some 34 million years ago. It was a time when drastic cooling made much of Asia inhospitable to primates, slashing their populations and rendering discoveries of such fossils especially rare. 'At the Eocene-Oligocene boundary, because of the rearrangement of Earth's major tectonic plates, you had a rapid drop in temperature and humidity,' said K. Christopher Beard, senior curator at the University...