Ape Fossil 18 Million Years Old Discovered in Egypt

A discovery that fills a gap

For decades, researchers believed that early apes and their close relatives were concentrated mainly in southern Africa. North African sites had yielded remains of ancient monkeys from the Early Miocene, but never of great apes from the same period. This absence strongly shaped theories about the evolution of this group.

According to the study published on March 26, 2026 in the journal Science, the international team, bringing together the Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center in Egypt and the University of Southern California in the United States, suggests that North Africa and the Middle East may have played a central role in the emergence of the lineage that gave rise to all living great apes.

An animal with unusual teeth

The fossils were collected during expeditions conducted in 2023 and 2024 by the Sallam laboratory at Wadi Moghra. The remains are limited to a lower jaw, but their combination of features is unusual: a very robust jaw, large canines and imposing premolars, along with molars whose chewing surfaces are rounded and strongly textured.

These traits suggest a diet made up mainly of fruit, with the ability to crush harder foods such as nuts or seeds when necessary. This dietary flexibility may have been a valuable asset at a time when the climate was becoming more seasonally contrasted.

An unexpected place in the family tree

Analysis of the position of Masripithecus in the evolutionary tree held a surprise. According to the researchers, the species was closer to living great apes than any known species from the Early Miocene of East Africa. To reach this result, the team used Bayesian statistical methods, which make it possible to compare several evolutionary scenarios and assess the weight of evidence for each.

The scientists combined anatomical data on living and extinct apes, genetic information on present-day species, and the geological ages of the fossils. They were thus able to reconstruct the kinship links and explore where their common ancestor may have lived.

North Africa, a possible cradle of the great apes

Other analyses of the ancient distribution of animals point to North Africa and the Middle East as the most likely geographic homelands of the common ancestor of all living great apes. This ancestor would have lived during the Early Miocene, a period of roughly 23 to 16 million years marked by the diversification of ape lineages and by profound environmental changes.

Geography plays a key role here. Africa and Arabia were then moving closer to Asia, and variations in sea level periodically altered land connections. This region therefore occupied a strategic position for exchanges between Africa and Eurasia.

A hypothesis under debate

Erik Seiffert, a paleontologist at the University of Southern California and co-author of the study, acknowledges that he long considered an East African origin for the common ancestor of the great apes to be likely. The new analyses strongly call this idea into question, without relying solely on Masripithecus.

The researchers do not, however, claim that this species is a direct ancestor of humans or even of living great apes. Its main contribution is clues about where the broader ancestral lineage may have originated, an important nuance in interpreting these results.