A New Species Of Extinct Chimpanzee
The chimpanzee lineage is composed of two well-known species. Therefore, a new species of chimpanzee would certainly be revolutionary news.
However, not everything is as it seems, and in this case we are referring to an extinct species that would share the genus Pan with the other two species of chimpanzees we know : the common chimpanzee and the pygmy or bonobo chimpanzee.
A new species of chimpanzee
The new species of chimpanzee would have lived with these other two great apes for thousands of years. However, although it has not survived to the present, this chimpanzee has come down to us through the bonobo genome.
In fact, it is difficult to find ancient remains of animals in the outskirts of Congo because of the acidity of the soils, which do not preserve the organic matter of the corpses deposited there. Thus, we know little about the biodiversity that existed in these lands thousands of years ago due to the absence of fossils.
But in this case, it was genetics that allowed the discovery of this new species of missing chimpanzee, thanks to genome sequencing of both bonobos and common chimpanzees.
Thanks to these studies, it was observed that the two species we knew hybridized to each other. Furthermore, it was also seen that, in the bonobo genome, there is a small percentage of DNA belonging to an unknown lineage, which would be from a new species of chimpanzee.
This species would have hybridized with bonobos more than 400,000 years ago, when it shared the habitat with other great apes around the Congo River.
Without a doubt, one of the most curious things about this study published in Nature is the fact that bonobos still keep the DNA of this species in their genome. So it is theorized that this provided some advantage for them.
DNA Traits
The story is very similar to the one we keep with other human species : in the DNA of Homo sapiens there are still traces of Neanderthals, who lived with our species and were closely related to us.
In fact, researchers believe this may have given these animals an immune advantage, similar to what happens to Neanderthal DNA traces that the human species retains.
Therefore, it seems reasonable to think that other primates also had congeners that have not survived to this day. However, in the case of man, this is easier to demonstrate because of its presence in a variety of ecosystems, many of them with the capacity to conserve fossils.
We can not forget that, if we discover a new species of chimpanzee, also we found one of our relatives more close, something of vital importance to understand our own species.
