ScienceDaily reports on a study led by the Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center in Egypt. From a lower jaw found at Wadi Moghra, the team named Masripithecus moghraensis, a fruit-eating ape about 17 to 18 million years old and the first definitive fossil ape from North Africa. Anatomy and genetic data place it closer to living apes than any East African early Miocene ape.

The analyses suggest North Africa and the Middle East as a likely home of the last common ancestor of all living apes. The authors stress it is not a direct human ancestor, and only part of the jaw is known. The original paper appeared in Science in March 2026. For freethinkers, it shows how human origins are pieced together from evidence.

Source: ScienceDaily (Mansoura University) (2026-11-01)

Summarised by the FTI newsdesk.