Mastodawn

#WeekendReading: Mateu-Vicens et al., on how geometries of ancients reefs on the margins of the Red Sea might inform of Oligo-Miocene coral reefs being actually deeper than was thought.

Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031018226003378

#Reef #Miocene

Dr. Or M. Bialik May 4

The rise and expansion of reef systems in the Indo-Pacific during the warm and CO2 high Miocene (and decline in the aftermath) will never stop being puzzling to me. Now we have evidence that it also had the biodiversity effects expected.

Link: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aec7264

#reefs #Miocene #biodiversity #paleontology

Primatology.net Mar 27

A 17-million-year-old jaw from Egypt just challenged where all living apes originated. One mandible from the desert, and the field’s East Africa-centered model is under serious pressure. #Paleoanthropology #HumanEvolution #Miocene https://www.primatology.net/p/a-jaw-from-egypt-rewrites-the-origin

A Jaw from Egypt Rewrites the Origin of Modern Apes

A newly described Early Miocene ape from northern Egypt suggests the common ancestor of all living apes lived in a region that paleontologists had largely stopped looking.

Primatology.net

Lukas VFN 🇪🇺Mar 26

#Masripithecus: A new #Miocene ape from #Egypt sheds light on the origins of modern apes
https://phys.org/news/2026-03-masripithecus-miocene-ape-egypt-modern.html paper: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz4102

"Masripithecus provides a crucial intermediate link between the previously disjunct African and Eurasian fossil records, revealing that #apes were already diversifying in the area and therefore positioned to expand into Europe and Asia as soon as land connections were established."