Did the first modern apes emerge in northern Africa and the Middle East instead of East Africa?

Amazing stuff! Maybe the pyramids in Egypt distracted too much! Just kidding!

"Scientists have long assumed that modern apes—the group that includes gibbons, orangutans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and humans—first emerged in East Africa. Newly discovered fossils described recently in Science, however, may rewrite that history.

Researchers working at the Wadi Moghra archaeological site in northern Egypt unearthed teeth and jawbones belonging to a previously unknown ape genus and species, which lived around 17 to 18 million years ago during the Early Miocene epoch. “Discovering a fossil ape in this region is both significant and somewhat surprising,” ...

The ancient animal, dubbed Masripithecus moghraensis , appears to be closely related to the last common ancestor of all living apes, suggesting this group actually got its start in northern Africa and the Middle East. Based on its large, textured teeth and robust jaw, the team believes M. moghraensis ate a flexible diet of fruit, nuts, and seeds—helping the species thrive during a period of climatic change. ..."

"... The remains, discovered in 2023 and 2024, are very incomplete ‪—‬ just a few fragments of lower jawbone and some worn teeth. But Al-Ashqar and her colleagues established that the remains didn't belong to any known ape species. The researchers have assigned the fossils to a new genus and species named Masripithecus moghraensis; the genus name translates to "Egypt monkey or trickster" in Arabic and Greek, while the species name refers to "Wadi Moghra," where it was found. ..."

From the Perspective abstract:

"Research on the closest extinct relatives of humans (such as australopiths) can only explain the most recent evolutionary history of the human lineage. Older apes are essential to reconstructing the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans—that is, the starting point of human evolution

(1). The ape and human lineage (hominoids) diverged from Old World monkeys in Afro-Arabia more than 25 million years ago (Ma)

(2). In the Miocene epoch (23 to 5 Ma), apes were much more diverse and widespread than they are today (1, 3). Various lineages of African archaic (stem) hominoids evolved before the origin of modern (crown) hominoids and their eventual dispersal into Eurasia. However, the origins of crown hominoids are still unclear. On page 1383 of this issue, Al-Ashqar et al. (4) describe a previously unknown Miocene ape from North Africa and discuss its relevance for crown-hominoid origins."

From the editor's summary and abstract:

"Editor’s summary

The vast majority of early hominoid fossil hunting has occurred in East Africa, where a trove of early fossils and lineages have been found. Other regions in Africa have been less explored for various reasons, inspiring the question of whether a focus on East Africa has shaped opinions about where early hominoid evolution occurred. Al-Ashqar et al. now describe a Miocene ape from Egypt with crown hominoid affinities suggesting both that this lineage diverged before entering Eurasia and that a focus on one African region may have shaped our ideas about where hominoids first emerged (see the Perspective by Alba and Arias-Martorell). ... 

Abstract

The Early Miocene fossil record documenting hominoid evolution has long been restricted primarily to sites in East Africa, whereas contemporaneous North African sites have only yielded remains of cercopithecoid monkeys.

Here, we describe a fossil ape from North Africa, a new genus (Masripithecus) from the Early Miocene (~17 million to 18 million years) of northern Egypt, on the basis of mandibular remains. A combined molecular-morphological Bayesian tip-dating analysis positions Masripithecus closer to crown hominoids than coeval fossil apes from East Africa, thereby filling a phylogenetic and biogeographic gap in the evolution of stem hominoids. This evidence suggests that crown Hominoidea might have originated during the Early Miocene in the underexplored northeastern part of Afro-Arabia, rather than in eastern Africa or Eurasia."

ScienceAdviser

18 million-year-old fossils of ape found in Africa, but in an unexpected place "The ancestor of apes was long thought to come from East Africa, but newly discovered fossils in Egypt may prompt a rethink."

The dawn of modern apes (Perspective, no public access)

An Early Miocene ape from the biogeographic crossroads of African and Eurasian Hominoidea (no public access)

A map showing the dispersal of apes, including Masripithecus moghraensis, in the Miocene.

A jaw fragment from Masripithecus moghraensis, photographed at the moment of discovery.