Just 21 of more than 400 teeth had fractures, suggesting early primates had soft-food diets
An analysis of hundreds of teeth from roughly 30-million-year-old fossils, including this <em>Propliopithecus chirobates</em> specimen, suggests early primates ate mostly soft foods such as fruit.</p>
" data-image-description="" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="122123_eg_primate-sweet-tooth_feat" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/122123_eg_primate-sweet-tooth_feat.jpg?fit=800%2C450&ssl=1" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/122123_eg_primate-sweet-tooth_feat.jpg?fit=680%2C383&ssl=1" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/122123_eg_primate-sweet-tooth_feat.jpg?fit=1440%2C810&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1440,810" data-permalink="https://www.sciencenews.org/122123_eg_primate-sweet-tooth_feat" decoding="async" height="580" sizes="(max-width: 1030px) 100vw, 1030px" src="https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/122123_eg_primate-sweet-tooth_feat.jpg?fit=1030%2C580&ssl=1" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/122123_eg_primate-sweet-tooth_feat.jpg?w=1440&ssl=1 1440w, https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/122123_eg_primate-sweet-tooth_feat.jpg?resize=680%2C383&ssl=1 680w, https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/122123_eg_primate-sweet-tooth_feat.jpg?resize=800%2C450&ssl=1 800w, https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/122123_eg_primate-sweet-tooth_feat.jpg?resize=330%2C186&ssl=1 330w, https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/122123_eg_primate-sweet-tooth_feat.jpg?resize=768%2C432&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/122123_eg_primate-sweet-tooth_feat.jpg?resize=1030%2C580&ssl=1 1030w, https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/122123_eg_primate-sweet-tooth_feat.jpg?resize=1380%2C776&ssl=1 1380w" width="1030">
An analysis of hundreds of teeth from roughly 30-million-year-old fossils, including this Propliopithecus chirobates specimen, suggests early primates ate mostly soft foods such as fruit.
I. Towle et al/American Journal of Biological Anthropology 2023
Soft fruits may have been the main dish on some ancient primate menus.
An analysis of hundreds of fossilized primate teeth from the Fayum Depression, a desert basin in Egypt, shows just a handful were fractured, researchers report December 13 in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology.
10 months ago
77 
