A bizarre ancient ape whose gait has stumped researchers for decades walked on all fours and swung from the trees, new research suggests.
Oreopithecus bambolii, an ape that lived on an isolated island 7 million to 9 million years ago in what is now Tuscany and Sardinia, Italy, didn't have the pelvis or spine necessary for regular upright walking, the researchers said. Rather, the beast traversed Earth on all fours.
Their conclusion, detailed online July 23 in the Journal of Human Evolution, overturns an earlier hypothesis that the mysterious ape independently evolved bipedal, or two-legged, walking.
Ape oddity
When O. bambolii was alive, Italy formed a string of islands that were covered with swampy forests and teeming with crocodilians. The ape went extinct after a land bridge connected their island to other land, allowing large saber-toothed cats and other predators to stalk the island.
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