Rosa Rubicondior: Creationism Refuted - A Possible Ancestor Of All The Apes

Sunday, 29 March 2026

Creationism Refuted - A Possible Ancestor Of All The Apes - From Egypt

Masripithecus moghraensis in Early Miocene Egypt

AI-generated image (ChatGPT Latest) based on artist's reconstruction.

Masripithecus: A new Miocene ape from Egypt sheds light on the origins of modern apes

Another piece of the rich and complex story of human evolution may have come to light, and it is not quite what researchers had expected. Competing theories have placed the ancestral home of the common ancestor of African and Asian anthropoid apes either in Eurasia or in Africa. This discovery, however, points instead to Egypt, and more broadly to North Africa and the Middle East, as the region in which the pivotal transition from Old World monkeys to the lineage that gave rise to the modern apes may have occurred.

News that this distant ancestor of humans came from Egypt and the wider Middle East may briefly gladden the hearts of creationists desperate for support for the biblical myth of a special creation of humans in that region. That enthusiasm is unlikely to survive contact with the details, however, because this animal lived 17–18 million years ago and was not a human at all, but part of the lineage leading to the common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and the Asian apes. Like so much palaeontological evidence, it therefore stands not in support of the Genesis creation myth, but as evidence for Darwinian evolution.

The discovery is described in a recent paper in Science by a research team from the Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center in Egypt and the University of Southern California in the USA, led by Mansoura University palaeontologist Hesham Sallam.

The fossil, belonging to a species the team have named Masripithecus moghraensis, was discovered at Wadi Moghra. The generic name combines Masri, the Arabic word for “Egyptian”, with the Greek píthēkos, meaning “ape”, so the name can be read as “Egyptian ape from Moghra”.

Although the find consists only of a lower jaw, it preserves several features not seen in any contemporaneous apes, including exceptionally large canine and premolar teeth, and molars with rounded, heavily textured chewing surfaces, all set in a robust mandible. Taken together, these features suggest a flexible feeder able to eat both fruit and harder foods such as nuts, an adaptation that may have helped it cope with the increasingly seasonal climate of Early Miocene Egypt.

In addition to the sophisticated Bayesian methods that placed Masripithecus earlier in ape evolutionary history than any other known fossil anthropoid, the researchers point out that during the Early Miocene the Egyptian region lay at a geographical crossroads between Eurasia and Africa. At that time, the African and Arabian plates were still moving northwards towards Eurasia, while fluctuating sea levels periodically opened migration routes between the continents. As so often in palaeontology, multiple independent lines of evidence converge on the same conclusion.

Early Miocene Egypt: A Crossroads in Ape Evolution. Around 17–18 million years ago, northern Egypt was not an isolated corner of the world but part of a crucial link between Africa and Eurasia. As tectonic movements and changing sea levels altered the region, dispersal routes opened and closed, making North Africa and the Middle East an important biogeographic crossroads for early apes and other mammals. The discovery of *Masripithecus moghraensis* at Wadi Moghra therefore matters not just because of the fossil itself, but because of where it was found. [1]

Wadi Moghra, in northern Egypt, has long been known as a rich fossil site, but *Masripithecus* is especially significant because it is the first definitive ape reported from the Early Miocene of North Africa. Its presence suggests that this region may have played a more important role in ape evolution than previously thought, helping to bridge the gap between the African and Eurasian fossil records. [1] The jaw and teeth also hint at the sort of environment this ape inhabited. Its robust lower jaw and specialised teeth suggest a flexible diet of fruit together with harder foods such as nuts or seeds, an adaptation that would have been useful in a more seasonal landscape where food supplies varied over the year. In that sense, Wadi Moghra was not simply where this ape happened to be buried, but part of the ecological setting that may have shaped its evolution. [1]

The paper in Science is accompanied by a press release from the Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Department.

Masripithecus: A new Miocene ape from Egypt sheds light on the origins of modern apes
A 17–18-million-year-old ape from Egypt suggests that the Middle East was a key center in early hominoid evolution
In a study to be published in Science on [3/26/2026], an international research team from the Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center (Egypt) and the University of Southern California (USA) describe Masripithecus moghraensis, a newly identified fossil ape that lived around 17–18 million years ago, during the Early Miocene. Recovered from the Wadi Moghra fossil site in northern Egypt, the remains represent the first definitive fossil ape known from North Africa. The finding not only extends the geographic range of early apes, but also places Egypt—and the wider Middle East region—at the heart of a pivotal evolutionary transition leading to modern apes.
We spent five years searching for this kind of fossil because, when we look closely at the early ape family tree, it becomes clear that something is missing—and North Africa holds that missing piece.

Hesham M. Sallam, senior author
Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center (MUVP)
Mansoura University
Mansoura, Egypt.

Previously, Early Miocene sites in North Africa had yielded fossils of monkeys, but not apes. As a result, early apes and their close relatives were thought to be confined largely to more southern parts of Africa during this period. Geologically younger ape fossils have been reported from Africa, Asia, and Europe, but their relationships and geographic roots are actively debated. Now it appears likely that this uneven fossil record obscured our understanding of the origin of crown Hominoidea—the group that includes all living apes, from gibbons and orangutans to gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans, along with their last common ancestor.

The discovery of Masripithecus not only reveals that apes were present in North Africa during this time period, but also that the new species was quite distinct from similar-aged species in East Africa. The genus name Masripithecus combines Masr (مصر), the Arabic word for Egypt, with the Greek píthēkos, meaning ape. The species name refers to Wadi Moghra, a well-known fossil locality in northern Egypt, where the remains were recovered during fieldwork by the Sallam Lab team in 2023 and 2024. Although the new fossil material is limited to the lower jaw, it preserves a distinctive combination of features not seen in any other known ape from this time. These include exceptionally large canine and premolar teeth, molar teeth with rounded and heavily textured chewing surfaces, and a notably robust jaw.

Together, they suggest that Masripithecus was adapted for versatility. The study interprets its chewing anatomy as evidence of a flexible, mainly fruit-based diet, with the ability to process harder foods such as nuts or seeds when needed. This flexibility would have helped Masripithecus to thrive at a time when climatic changes were leading to more pronounced seasonality in northern Africa and Arabia.

Shorouq F. Al-Ashqar, first author
Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center (MUVP)
Mansoura University
Mansoura, Egypt.

Anatomy alone, however, is only part of the story. Masripithecus occupies a key position on the ape family tree. Using sophisticated Bayesian methods, the team combined anatomical evidence from living and extinct apes, DNA from living apes, and the geological ages of fossil species to determine how living and extinct species are related, and when they all split from each other. The researchers’ analysis found that Masripithecus is more closely related to the living apes than are any species known from the Early Miocene of East Africa.

Additional biogeographic analyses by the team point to northern Africa and the Middle East as the most likely home for the common ancestor of all living apes, which is estimated to have lived during the Early Miocene. During that time period, this region occupied a key position as the African and Arabian plates moved to the north during their final phase of collision with Asia. Shifting sea levels periodically reduced marine barriers, turning the region into a natural corridor for animal dispersal.

In this context, Masripithecus provides a crucial intermediate link between the previously disjunct African and Eurasian fossil records, revealing that apes were already diversifying in the area and therefore positioned to expand into Europe and Asia as soon as land connections were established.

For my entire career, I considered it probable that the common ancestor of all living apes lived in or around East Africa. But this new discovery, and our new and novel analyses of hominoid phylogeny and biogeography, now strongly challenge that idea. And, importantly, the likelihood of this scenario doesn’t depend on Masripithecus -- but it is very much consistent with it.

Erik Seiffert, co-author
Division of Integrative Anatomical Sciences
Department of Medical Education
Keck School of Medicine of USC
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA, USA.

The researchers anticipate that renewed exploration in this region will uncover further fossils critical to understanding the origin and early diversification of modern apes. As Masripithecus moghraensis shows, key chapters of our evolutionary history may still lie hidden in regions that have yet to be fully explored.

Publication:
Shorouq F. Al-Ashqar et al.
An Early Miocene ape from the biogeographic crossroads of African and Eurasian Hominoidea.
Science 391, 1383-1386 (2026). DOI:10.1126/science.adz4102

Abstract

The Early Miocene fossil record documenting hominoid evolution has long been restricted primarily to sites in East Africa, whereas contemporaneous North African sites have only yielded remains of cercopithecoid monkeys. Here, we describe a fossil ape from North Africa, a new genus (Masripithecus) from the Early Miocene (~17 million to 18 million years) of northern Egypt, on the basis of mandibular remains. A combined molecular-morphological Bayesian tip-dating analysis positions Masripithecus closer to crown hominoids than coeval fossil apes from East Africa, thereby filling a phylogenetic and biogeographic gap in the evolution of stem hominoids. This evidence suggests that crown Hominoidea might have originated during the Early Miocene in the underexplored northeastern part of Afro-Arabia, rather than in eastern Africa or Eurasia.

Shorouq F. Al-Ashqar et al.
An Early Miocene ape from the biogeographic crossroads of African and Eurasian Hominoidea.
Science 391, 1383-1386 (2026). DOI:10.1126/science.adz4102

© 2026 American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Reprinted under the terms of s60 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

What this discovery adds to the growing catalogue of evidence is not merely another extinct ape, but another reminder that human origins lie deep in evolutionary time and in a branching family history, not in the childish simplicity of a special creation myth. Far from appearing suddenly, without ancestors, humans are part of a long lineage of related primates stretching back millions of years, with each new fossil helping to clarify another part of that story.

Creationists may try to take fleeting comfort from the fact that this important fossil comes from Egypt and the wider Middle East, but that comfort evaporates as soon as the evidence is examined. Masripithecus moghraensis was not a human, nor even a uniquely human ancestor, but part of the broader ape lineage from which humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and the Asian apes eventually emerged. Instead of supporting the Bible’s tale of humans created by magic from dust, it shows that our origins lie in the same evolutionary processes that shaped the rest of life on Earth.

Once again, too, it is notable that several independent lines of evidence converge on the same conclusion. Anatomy, dating, geology, biogeography and statistical phylogenetic analysis all point in the same direction. That is how science works: evidence from different fields is tested against reality, and when those lines of evidence agree, confidence in the conclusion grows stronger. By contrast, creationism contributes nothing to understanding discoveries like this except the predictable need to ignore, deny or misrepresent them.

So, yet again, the real world turns out to be richer, older and far more interesting than ancient mythology imagined. The story emerging from the rocks of Egypt is not one of sudden magical creation, but of populations moving, adapting, diversifying and leaving descendants. It is, in other words, exactly the sort of story evolutionary theory predicts and exactly the sort of evidence that biblical literalism cannot accommodate without retreating ever further from reality.

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