Changes in the diet of the ruminant Micromeryx, an extinct musk deer that inhabited the same areas as hominoids and pliopithecoids during the Miocene, reveal that these extinct primates lived in different habitats in Catalonia as a result of their different food preferences and locomotion behaviors. Changes in vegetation due to more arid and seasonal environments explain why these two groups never cohabited. The study carried out by research staff from the University of Zaragoza, the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont and the Complutense University of Madrid has been published in BMC Biology.
Els canvis en la dieta del remugant Micromeryx, un cérvol mesquer extint que va habitar en les mateixes zones que els hominoïdeus i els pliopitecoïdeus durant el Miocè, ha revelat que aquests primats extints van ocupar hàbitats diferents a Catalunya com a conseqüència de les seves diferents preferències alimentàries i tipus de locomoció. Els canvis en la vegetació provocats per un augment de l'aridesa expliquen perquè aquests dos grups mai van cohabitar. L'estudi ha estat publicat a BMC Biology per personal investigador de la Universitat de Saragossa, l'Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont i la Universitat Complutense de Madrid.
A team of researchers from the ‘Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont’ describes in the Science magazine the new genus and species, Pliobates cataloniae, based on a skeleton recovered from the landfill of Can Mata (els Hostalets de Pierola, Catalonia, Spain). The fossil remains belong to an adult female individual named “Laia” by her discoverers. “Laia” weighed 4-5 kg, consumed soft fruit items and moved through the forest canopy by climbing and suspending below branches. Pliobates lived 11.6 million years ago and precedes the divergence between hominids (great apes and humans) and hylobatids (gibbons), which has important implications for reconstructing the last common ancestor of both groups.