Researchers have identified a previously unknown fossil ape from Egypt that could alter long-held ideas about the origins of modern apes.
The evolutionary story of apes has long contained a major geographic gap. While fossil discoveries from East Africa, Europe, and Asia have helped trace the rise of modern apes, North Africa has remained conspicuously absent from the record. A newly discovered fossil from Egypt may finally help fill that void.
In a study published in Science, researchers from the Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center and the University of Southern California describe Masripithecus moghraensis, a previously unknown ape species that lived roughly 17 to 18 million years ago during the Early Miocene.
Unearthed at the Wadi Moghra fossil site in northern Egypt, the remains represent the first definitive fossil ape from North Africa and provide new evidence that the region may have been a crucial crossroads in the early evolution and dispersal of apes.
Hesham Sallam, a paleontologist at Mansoura University, Egypt, and senior author of the study, said, “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.”
Fossils fill a northern gap
Earlier Early Miocene fossil sites in North Africa had produced monkey remains, but no confirmed ape fossils. Because of that gap, early apes and their close relatives were generally thought to have lived mainly farther south in Africa during this period.
Younger ape fossils have been found in Africa, Asia, and Europe, but scientists continue to debate how those fossils are related and where their geographic roots lie. The uneven fossil record may therefore have distorted our understanding of the origins of crown Hominoidea, the group that includes all living apes, from gibbons and orangutans to gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans, as well as their last common ancestor.
The discovery of Masripithecus shows that apes were living in North Africa during this period. It also indicates that the new species differed clearly from East African apes of roughly the same age. 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, the well-known fossil locality in northern Egypt where the Sallam Lab team recovered the remains during fieldwork in 2023 and 2024.
Teeth reveal flexible feeding
The known fossils are limited to a lower jaw, but that jaw preserves a distinctive set of traits not seen in any other known ape from the same time. These include unusually large canine and premolar teeth, molars with rounded and heavily textured chewing surfaces, and a particularly robust jaw.
Masripithecus sculpting video, sculpting by Mohammed Hebeish. Credit: Professor Hesham Sallam
“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,” said Shorouq Al-Ashqar, a researcher at the Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center, Egypt, who was a first author of the study.
Analyses shift ape origins
The anatomy is only one part of the evidence. Masripithecus also holds an important position in the ape family tree. Using advanced Bayesian methods, the team brought together anatomical data from living and extinct apes, DNA from living apes, and the geological ages of fossil species to estimate how living and extinct forms are related and when their lineages diverged. Their analysis found that Masripithecus is more closely related to living apes than any known Early Miocene ape from East Africa.
The team’s biogeographic analyses also suggest that northern Africa and the Middle East were the most likely home of the common ancestor of all living apes, which is estimated to have lived during the Early Miocene.
At that time, the region sat in a crucial position as the African and Arabian plates moved north during the final stage of their collision with Asia. Periodic sea level shifts reduced marine barriers, making the area a natural corridor for animals moving between regions.
Within that setting, Masripithecus helps bridge a major gap between African and Eurasian ape fossil records that had previously seemed disconnected. Its presence suggests that apes were already diversifying in this region and were well positioned to spread into Europe and Asia once land connections opened.
More evidence may be hidden
Erik Seiffert, a paleontologist at the University of Southern California who was a co-author of the study, said that his perspective on ape origins has changed. “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.”
The researchers expect that more fieldwork in the region could uncover additional fossils that are essential for understanding how modern apes originated and began to diversify. As Masripithecus moghraensis demonstrates, important parts of our evolutionary story may still be waiting in places that have not yet been fully explored.
Reference: “An Early Miocene ape from the biogeographic crossroads of African and Eurasian Hominoidea” by 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, 26 March 2026, Science.
DOI: 10.1126/science.adz4102
Funding: Mansoura University, Leakey Foundation, The Science and Technology and Development Fund (STDF), Ministry of Higher Education in Egypt
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