The older date brings scientists closer to pinpointing a pivotal event in primate and human evolution: the divergence between the lineage leading to anthropoids — which include modern monkeys, apes and humans — and the one leading to tarsiers.
They share some traits with the most basal primates, and thus are often confused as being ancestral to modern monkeys, apes, and humans.
Researchers calculated the brain volume to be 36 cubic centimeters, which is less than half the brain size of modern monkeys.
Update: The "find that will change everything" is a 47-million-year-old fossil found in Germany of a primate that could be the common ancestor of modern apes, monkeys, and humans.
Radio and podcast review: It's Not What You Know; Sara Pascoe: The Modern Monkey; Tim Key's Late Night Poetry Programme; What Are Universities For? Joe Lycett, host of It's Not What You Know, appears to be a comedian.
Perhaps a modern "monkey business" couldn't be made now, partly because there isn't the same presumed sophistication and elegance for the monkey to play off – the surreal effect would be lost – and partly because modern audiences are squeamish about performing animals, though a CGI chimp can be made to do anything.
I did not say that monkey (modern monkey) is our ancestor.
Crews also form for other reasons such as theme (Jabbawockeez), gender (ReQuest Dance Crew), ethnicity (Kaba Modern), dance style (Massive Monkeys), and age (Hip Op-eration).
Archicebus achilles lived on a humid, tropical lake shore 55m years ago in what is now China and is the ancestor of all modern tarsiers, monkeys, apes and humans.
