The world's oldest known fossil primate skeleton –dating back 55 million years – has been discovered in China, scientists have announced.
Estimated to have weighed 20 to 30 grammes, the skeleton of the tiny long-tailed creature was unearthed in an ancient lake bed in central China's Hubei province, near the course of the modern Yangtze River.
Archicebus achilles is thought to have been active during the day, to have climbed trees and eaten insects.
The findings represent a decade of intensive research by scientists using expertise at museums throughout the world.
Lead researcher Xijun Ni, a scientist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, said in the journal Nature: "It represents a big step forward in our efforts to chart the course of the earliest phases of primate and human evolution."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article