Before the new discovery, scientists believed that on Earth there are only two types of orangutans.
An international team of zoologists discovered on the island of Sumatra, a new species of orangutan which is already under threat of extinction. Their discovery, the researchers reported in the journal Current Biology.
Up to the present time, scientists believed that on Earth there are two species of orangutans – bornasco (Pongo pygmaeus) and sumarski (Pongo abelii), and until 1996, when geneticists have decoded the DNA of these apes, they were considered only subspecies. As shown by the observation of colonies of these monkeys, orangutans from Borneo have a slightly smaller and are a little more “reclusive” lifestyle, than their relatives from Sumatra.
Four years ago the inhabitants of the Northern part of the island of Sumatra brought to the camp of scientists remains one of the orangutans living in the territory of the province Tapanuli, where it has recently been found colony, as it seemed to zoologists, Pongo abelii.
When the scientists saw his skull, they noticed that it differs markedly in its form, size and structure on how to construct the same part of the skeleton other orangutans from Sumatra. This gave them the idea that the primacy and isolated colony of monkeys in which he lived, could be representatives of separate species of orangutans.
To test this idea, the researchers extracted DNA from the bones of a male, killed during one of the skirmishes with the locals, and compared its mitochondrial DNA is a small part of the genome that is passed from mother to her children with the same part of the genetic code 37 other orangutans.
This comparison revealed that the orangutans of Tapanuli are a separate species of primates that occurred some three million years ago. Their closest relatives are orangutans, not from Sumatra, but of Borneo, which became a separate species much later, about 700 thousand years ago. In favor of this also say differences in behavior and look of these primates is their face and some other parts of the body is structured not as Pongo pygmaeus or Pongo abelii.
© 2017 – 2019, paradox. All rights reserved.
