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| Masripithecus moghraensis Al-Ashqar, Seiffert, El-Sayed, Salem, Gohar, El-Saka, Amin & Sallam, 2026 Illustration by Mauricio Antón |
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.
Masripithecus moghraensis
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| Illustration of Masripithecus moghraensis by Mauricio Antón |
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| Masripithecus moghraensis and the dispersal of crown hominoids in the Miocene. The map highlights Wadi Moghra, Egypt (star), which is the discovery site of Masripithecus—the first definitive North African ape—alongside key Miocene hominoid localities (see table S1) across Afro-Arabia and Eurasia. Arrows indicate inferred dispersal routes based on the phylogenetic and biogeographic analyses presented here. The inset phylogeny places Masripithecus as the closest sampled sister taxon of crown Hominoidea. At lower left, a life reconstruction of Masripithecus based on the Masripithecus mandible combined with the facial morphology of the middle Miocene hominoid Pierolapithecus. Illustration by Mauricio Antón |
SHOROUQ F. AL-ASHQAR, ERIK R. SEIFFERT, SANAA EL-SAYED, BELAL S. SALEM, ABDULLAH S. GOHAR, HOSSAM EL-SAKA, MOHAMED AMIN, AND HESHAM M. SALLAM. 2026. An Early Miocene Ape from the Biogeographic Crossroads of African and Eurasian Hominoidea. SCIENCE. 391(6792); 1383-1386. DOI: doi.org/10.1126/science.adz4102 [26 Mar 2026]
Editor’s summary: The vast majority of early hominoid fossil hunting has occurred in East Africa, where a trove of early fossils and lineages have been found. Other regions in Africa have been less explored for various reasons, inspiring the question of whether a focus on East Africa has shaped opinions about where early hominoid evolution occurred. Al-Ashqar et al. now describe a Miocene ape from Egypt with crown hominoid affinities suggesting both that this lineage diverged before entering Eurasia and that a focus on one African region may have shaped our ideas about where hominoids first emerged (see the Perspective by Alba and Arias-Martorell). —Sacha Vignieri
