APES

In the thirteen sections listed below I will trace our path through time from ancestral apes who abandoned trees for water, returned to a fully terrestrial lifestyle, and then grew an oversize brain that could survive in almost any habitat on Earth.  The unique talents of the latest descendants of ancient apes is now in the process of replacing many of Earth's ecosystems with a sterile system which is unlivable for many of the plants and animals with whom our ancestors coevolved. 

Tailless monkeys

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We evolved from apes.  Apes evolved from monkeys, and they are generally larger than monkeys.  The larger size of apes made it easier for them to wade in swamps, where they found much of their food.  They ate floating vegetation and other things from the swamp, like crustaceans that they found in reedbeds.

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Tails had helped the smaller monkeys to maintain balance in the trees, but presented a problem for apes, whose short tails simply picked up parasites from the water or tempted fish and turtles to snack on them, so evolution ditched the tails altogether.  Apes are tailless.

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Twelve million years ago the swamps and humid forests of Europe were ideal for apes as well as monkeys.  Apes tended to have larger bodies than monkeys, and this helped them to travel long distances along the ground in the more seasonal Europe, where some trees yielded fruits only seasonally.

Each kind of ape had its own special features.  They varied in size, and they varied in their modes of travel, through the trees and along the ground.  Of the many kinds of apes, some were bipedal.

Bipedal apes habitually stood and moved in an upright position.  Among these were the ancestors of chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans, as well as humans.  While bipedal apes may have been at a disadvantage in scampering along the ground, they were better able to seek refuge in deep water; quadrupedal animals are at a disadvantage in deep water where they could lose their footing.

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Danuvius guggenmosi

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Danuvius guddenmosi were possibly ancestors of ours.  About 11.6 million years ago, near the beginning of the gradual change in climate, they left their fossils in central Europe – specifically, their fossils were found in Bavaria.  When these apes were on the ground they walked in a fully upright position, as gibbons do today.  But while gibbons used their long arms to swing through trees like acrobats, Danuvius guggenmosi used their long arms to grab overhead branches while they walked on limbs -- they were bipedal apes.

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Starting about ten or eleven million years ago the climate of Europe began to change -- it grew cooler, drier, and more seasonal.  Fewer trees produced succulent fruits, so the apes started to rely more on harder foods like mollusks, nuts, roots and underground stems.

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The apes sometimes damaged their teeth on these harder foods.  Those with damaged teeth often failed to pass on their genes, because damage to their teeth made it more difficult for them to eat.  So, the apes came to have thicker and harder enamel on their teeth.  This is a hallmark of hominins, who were our more recent ancestors.  We, ourselves, have very hard, thick enamel on our teeth, and so did Danuvius guggenmosi.

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As the European climate changed, trees that bore succulent fruits throughout the year were replaced by others that produced only nuts, seeds or cones, or produced succulent fruits only in summer and fall.  Moreover, as Europe became more seasonal, trees no longer produced soft, easily-chewed leaves in the winter season.  These were among the reasons why our ancestors began more and more to look for their food along the edges of lakes and rivers, rather than in trees.  Our ancestors were ultimately the only apes who survived in Europe.  (The ancestors of our cousins, chimpanzees and bonobos, apparently crossed a mostly dried-out Mediterranean Basin and survived in Africa.)​

Males of the Danuvius gugggenmosi species were much larger than females, indicating that they, like modern gorillas, collected harems.  They were different from gorillas in that they were much smaller and they did not habitually use their hands while walking cross-country.  Their smaller size enabled them to easily travel in that way.

Rudapithecus hungaricus

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About 1.6 million years after the Danuvius guggenmosi fossil was laid down in central Europe, a similar fossil was deposited further south and east, in what is now eastern Hungary.  This hominin, perhaps a later model of the same species, was given the name Rudapithecus hungaricus, and also must have included nuts in their diets.  They must have learned to crack nuts open by hitting them with hammerstones.

When they could find neither fruits nor nuts to eat, they might have descended from the trees and found their food in shallow water, and in reedbeds they could have found small crustaceans that hid there.  Edible storage organs of water plants could also be found in shallow water.

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Like Danuvius gugenmosi, they were bipedal, and this might have often saved them from being eaten when they were attacked by predators.  A quadrupedal predator who followed a similarly sized bipedal ape into deep water would quickly lose its footing, and the ape could simply push the predator's head under the water and drown it.

Rudapithecus hungaricus were even smaller than Danuvius guggenmosi, and this would make it easier for them to follow streams and the edges of lakes, rather than walk from tree to tree, even though they also walked upright.  Their arms were probably shorter than their ancestors, because they climbed trees less often and walked on the ground more often.

These apes could not survive on very low-quality foods, as gorillas often do today, because they were very small, and food had to pass through their intestines quickly.

Ouranopithecus

Europe continued to become still more seasonal, so by the time Ouranopithecus Macedonicus lived in northern Greece, about 9 million years ago, they were even more dependent on resources that they found near the water's edge, and less dependent on foods that they found in trees.  Moreover, they began to make their nests in reedbeds, where they could hear predators coming and be prepared to run for deep water, rather in trees.

Many predators were very large, and the larger predators were dangerous to small apes even while the apes were wading in deep water.  This circumstance  had prompted the ancestors of Ouranopithecus to evolve to have larger body sizes.  They also began to develop an ability to swim.  This differentiated them from the modern Great Apes, their closest living relatives, all of which will sink like rocks if they lose their footing in deep water.

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When an Ouranopithecus waded in water, he would waddle, swaying from side to side with each step.  In other words, when he put his weight on his left leg he swayed to the left, and when he put his weight on his right leg he swayed to the right.  But this swaying to the left and right slowed him down, so when he needed to take a cross-country hike, he would compensate for his wide hips by twisting his very flexible spine, clockwise or counterclockwise, with each step.  This gave him an exaggerated swagger.

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The reason Ouranopithecus did not evolve narrower hips -- like those of their descendants, the Australopithecines -- was that a shorter pelvic girdle would have narrowed the opening through which the birth canal had to pass, making it more difficult for a female Ouranopithecus to give birth.

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Moreover, birth was already difficult for members of this species.  This was because, as the ancestors of Ouranopithecus had evolved to a larger body size their pelvic girdle (the frame that supports the upper body) had rotated so as to better support their bigger, heavier upper body, and this had made it necessary for the birth canal to descend through the opening in it before turning toward the vagina, which of course opened toward the front of the body.  This is similar to the arrangement in a modern human female's body.

Birth is difficult and dangerous for a modern human female.  Likewise, the sharp turn in the birth canal made it more difficult for an Ouranopithecus to give birth; the fetus had to pass through a long, twisting birth canal, as does a human fetus when it is being born, and if it did not dive headfirst into the birth canal, as a human fetus usually does when it is being born, this endangered the lives of both the mother and the child.

Graecopithecus freybergensis

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Seven million years ago Graecopithecus freybergensis lived just north of the Mediterranean Sea, and their fossils were found in Bulgaria and in Greece.  Characteristics of their teeth indicate that they were closely related to the later hominins, and therefore must have been hominins themselves.  Moreover, comparison of their teeth with those of Ouranopithecus macedonicus indicates that they were closely related to those earlier apes, as well, so hominins were most likely descendants of the bipedal apes of Europe.  Nobody knows where Graecopithecus freybergensis foraged, because only two of their fossils have been found.

Those fossils were found in places that were very dry seven million years ago, but based on their family connections, that is not likely where they foraged.  The fossils were most likely swept into thos locations by floods.

In any event, their descendants most likely moved a little further south, where they could forage in the intertidal zone for crabs and shellfish.  Their descendants could open shellfish by smashing them with hammerstones, like their ancestors had opened hard nuts, or they could pry a bivalve open or pry a limpet loose with the sharp edge of a rock.  Tides can often turn quickly in an intertidal zone, so these near-apes definitely needed to learn to swim when they began to forage in the intertidal zone.

Foraging in the surf and in the intertidal zone for crabs and shellfish would cause these hominins to ingest a lot of salt, so in the course of time they evolved genetically so that their sweat glands, kidneys and lachrymal glands were able to expel the excess salt from their bodies.

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Sahelanthropus tchadensis

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About the time that Graecopithecus freybergensus were developing semi-aquatic habits in the southern fringes of Europe, Sahelanthropus tchadensis were moving into Africa after crossing a mostly dried up Mediterranean Basin.  The latter species were fully bipedal, like their ancestors; but unlike their ancestors, and ours (and Capuchin monkeys) they carried their heads somewhat forward.  This enabled them to more effectively use their fangs for fighting and self-defense.

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Sahelanthropus tchadensis were more likely ancestral to gorillas or chimpanzees than they are to hominins.

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