Missing Link Found: It Lived 11.6 Million Years Ago, New Primate Species at the Root of the Tree of Extant Hominoids

In fact, the skull and some parts of the postcranial skeleton of Pliobates cataloniae show some features that are exclusive to extant gibbons. “This suggests that, alternately, Pliobates might be the sister group of extant gibbons only”, asserts Salvador Moyà-Solà, ICREA researcher and director of the ICP, who also participated in the study. “We hope that future discoveries in the landfill of Can Mata will help us to clarify the role played by small-bodied catarrhines in hominoid evolution and, finally, to solve the enigma of extant gibbons’ origins”, concludes Moyà-Solà.

The cranial remains were so fragmentary that researchers relied on a virtual reconstruction based on high-resolution computed-tomography imagery to study them.

The name of the new genus (Pliobates) is a combination of Pliopithecus (which means “more ape”) and Hylobates (“the one who walks or haunts”), in allusion to the primitive similarities with other previously-known small-bodied anthropoids (pliopithecoids) and the resemblances, in derived features, with extant gibbons (hylobatids). The species epithet (cataloniae) is a geographical reference the location of the site in Catalonia. The specimen has been nicknamed “Laia”, a familiar diminutive of “Eulalia”, the patron of Barcelona, which literally means “well spoken, eloquent” because of the new knowledge that means to science.

Abocador de Can Mata, an exceptional site

The finding of Pliobates proves once again that the complex of sites at Abocador de Can Mata is one of the most important places worldwide to study the origin of extant hominoids. The paleontological surveillance performed during the enlargement of the landfill over the last 13 years, under the scientific supervision of the ICP, has enabled the recovery of extraordinary fossil primate remains from 12.5 to 11.5 million years ago. Most noteworthy are the skeleton of Pierolapithecus catalaunicus (known as “Pau”), found in 2002 and described in 2004, as well as the skull of Anoiapithecus brevirostris (“Lluc”), described in 2009.

During the middle and early late Miocene, the area where the current landfill is located was a closed forest with a warm and wet climate with some permanent waterbodies nearby. This environment facilitated a great faunal diversity, as it is represented by the nearly 80 mammalian species that have been identified at the site, in addition to several amphibians, reptiles and birds. Thus, besides hominoid and pliopithecoid primates, small mammals (insectivores and rodents), ungulates (such as horses, rhinos and deer), many carnivorans (including those known as “false saber-toothed cats”, currently extinct), and proboscideans distantly related to modern elephants have been found in this area.

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