” No primate relative has actually ever been found at such severe latitudes,” Miller said. I was able to do a phylogenetic analysis, which assisted me understand how the fossils from Ellesmere Island are associated to types discovered in midlatitudes of North America– places like New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana.” A lot of what we do in paleontology is look at teeth– they protect the best,” stated Miller, who evaluated high-resolution microtomography of the fossil teeth described in the paper.” But theyre still quite little,” Miller stated.” It does reveal how something like a primate or a primate relative thats specialized to one environment can alter based off of environment change,” Miller stated.
The specimens were found on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada, in layers of sediment connected with the early Eocene, an epoch of warmer temperature levels that might predict how ecosystems will fare in coming years due to human-driven climate modification.
” No primate relative has actually ever been found at such severe latitudes,” Miller said. “Theyre more generally found around the equator in tropical areas. I had the ability to do a phylogenetic analysis, which assisted me understand how the fossils from Ellesmere Island relate to types found in midlatitudes of North America– locations like New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. Even down in Texas, we have some fossils that come from this family also.”
The Arctic Circle was much warmer when these close evolutionary cousins of primates lived– a boreal community that hosted a myriad of early Cenozoic vertebrates, including ancient crocodiles– however like today was still primarily dark for half of the year. This darkness, according to Miller, may have set off both species to progress more robust teeth and jaws compared to other primate loved ones of the time.
” A great deal of what we do in paleontology is look at teeth– they protect the best,” said Miller, who evaluated high-resolution microtomography of the fossil teeth described in the paper. “Their teeth are just super unusual compared to their closest family members. So, what Ive been doing the past number of years is trying to comprehend what they were consuming, and if they were eating different products than their middle-latitude counterparts.”
When the Artic primate family members likely were required to take in harder material, Miller and her co-authors believe food was much tougher to find throughout dim winter months.
” That, we think, is probably the most significant physical difficulty of the ancient environment for these animals,” said matching author Chris Beard, senior manager of vertebrate paleontology at the Biodiversity Institute and Foundation Distinguished Professor of Ecology & & Evolutionary biology at KU. “How do you make it through six months of winter darkness, even if its fairly warm? The teeth and even the jaw muscles of these animals changed compared to their close family members from mid-latitudes. To endure those long Arctic winter seasons, when preferred foods like fruits were not readily available, they needed to rely on fallback foods like nuts and seeds.”
Miller and Beards other co-author is Kristen Tietjen, a scientific illustrator at the Biodiversity Institute.
Additionally, the researchers found both types were a little bigger than their closest loved ones further to the south– a group of primate cousins dubbed “plesiadapiforms.”.
” But theyre still pretty small,” Miller said. “Some plesiadapiforms from the midlatitudes of North America are actually, really tiny. Naturally, none of these species are related to squirrels, however I think thats the closest animal that we have that assists us picture what they might have been like. They were more than likely really arboreal– so, residing in the trees many of the time.”.
The researchers think adaptations displayed by both Arctic species during a time of global warming demonstrate how some animals likely might develop new characteristics in reaction to climate change driven by human activity today.
” It does reveal how something like a primate or a primate relative thats specialized to one environment can change based off of environment modification,” Miller said. “I believe probably what it states is primates range might broaden with environment change or move at least towards the poles instead of the equator. Life begins to get too hot there, perhaps well have a lot of taxa moving north and south, instead of the extreme biodiversity we see at the equator today.”.
The private investigators bestowed them with scientific names honoring a pair of paleontologists who worked on Ellesmere Island years ago since both fossil types are brand-new to science. Among these namesake paleontologists was a KU alumna and pioneer for females in the field of paleontology.
” Mary Dawson was an amazing person,” Beard stated. “She earned her doctorate at KU back in the 50s and was amongst the first, if not the very first, American females to get a Ph.D. in paleontology– and among the very first ladies to make a name for herself as a paleontologist in the United States. I worked closely with Mary for more than 20 years in my former profession at the Carnegie Museum, where she spent her whole career. Mary was the leader of a huge task on Ellesmere Island. Naturally, we were going to call one of the species after her. The other types is called after Malcolm McKenna, a contemporary, close friend and associate of Mary Dawson and a former coach of mine.”.
Undoubtedly, the fossil species Ignacius mckennai and I. dawsonae became part of a collection of fossils left behind by Dawson and McKenna for more analysis.
” Mary and Malcolm bequeathed me with those fossils and asked me to study them,” Beard said. “I stated, Yes, naturally– Im happy to do that. They just sat like a fine white wine and improved and better through time up until Kristen showed up– and it was clear that Kristen had everything that it required to bring the ball over the surface line.”.
For more on this research, see First Primate Relatives Discovered in the High Arctic of Ancient Canada.
Referral: “Basal Primatomorpha colonized Ellesmere Island (Arctic Canada) during the hyperthermal conditions of the early Eocene climatic optimum” by Kristen Miller, Kristen Tietjen and K. Christopher Beard, 25 January 2023, PLOS ONE.DOI: 10.1371/ journal.pone.0280114.
Artists reconstruction of Ignacius dawsonae making it through six months of winter darkness in the extinct warm temperate environment of Ellesmere Island, Arctic Canada. Credit: Kristen Miller, Biodiversity Institute, University of Kansas
The fossils were discovered on Ellesmere Island, located in Nunavut, Canada, within sedimentary layers related to the early Eocene epoch, potentially supplying insight into how communities might progress in the years to come.
Researchers at the University of Kansas have actually identified 2 sister types of near-primates, referred to as “primatomorphans,” which lived approximately 52 million years earlier and are the earliest known to have actually populated areas north of the Arctic Circle. These findings were recently released in the journal PLOS ONE.
According to Kristen Miller, lead author and a doctoral trainee at the Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum of the University of Kansas, both species– Ignacius mckennai and I. dawsonae– descended from a typical northbound ancestor who possessed a spirit “to boldly go where no primate has preceded.”