In 2023 and 2024, at the Wadi Moghra archaeological site in northern Egypt, Shorouq Al-Ashqar at Mansoura University, Egypt, and her colleagues found teeth and jawbones from two ancient apes in deposits dated to approximately 17 million to 18 million years old. Al-Ashqar and her colleagues think the animal, named Masripithecus moghraensis, is the closest known ancestor of all living great apes, including humans, gorillas and chimpanzees, and lesser apes such as gibbons and siamangs. The earliest apes are thought to have all evolved in Africa, but by 16 million years ago, some members of the group were living in Europe and Asia. The teeth and mandible suggest M. moghraensis had a flexible diet, she says. “For decades, palaeontologists have been, to some extent, sort of stuck finding the same kinds of species in the early Miocene of East Africa.

Source: The North Africa Journal March 26, 2026 18:02 UTC