Monkey pioneers may have rafted across the Atlantic 40 million years ago

The idea of monkeys sailing on a raft across an ocean may seem a bit implausible. But it’s some scientists’ best guess for how the primates ended up in South America, BBC reports. Last year, new fossil evidence in the Amazon suggested monkeys must have arrived from Africa about 40 million years ago. The problem is, the Atlantic Ocean stood between the continents, even if it was smaller than the Atlantic we know now. So it seems that, somehow, the monkeys floated across. And it wouldn’t have been easy. Even under the best conditions—some researchers imagine a “floating island” with a tree acting as a sail—the trip would have been about 15 days long. This would have put the monkeys at risk of starvation and dehydration, so they must have been hardy pioneers indeed. 

猴子划着木筏穿越大洋的观点看起来似乎有些不可行。但是英国广播公司报道称，这是科学家对于这种灵长类动物最终如何到达南美洲的最佳猜想。去年，在亚马逊雨林发现的新化石证据表明，猴子在距今4000万年前从非洲抵达了南美洲。由此从某种程度上看，猴子的确曾漂洋过海。这并不容易，即便是根据最佳假设条件—— 一些研究人员猜想是用树木作为“漂移的岛屿”让猴子乘风破浪穿越大洋，这样的旅程也需要15天左右，这会让猴子处于饥饿和缺水的境地，因此猴子的祖先一定经历了艰难的日子。