Talk:New World monkey

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Is anyone aware of the relationship between continental drift and primate evolution?

<sarcasm>No, no one is aware of it.</sarcasm> Do you have some text you want to add to the article, and do you have a citation to support it? - UtherSRG (talk) 18:19, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Someone should add a section about how the new world monkeys managed to get there. Ashwinr 20:02, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I am looking at the continental drift http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gondwana It is only about ~1800 miles/ 2800km from Brasil to West Africa now - the 4500km does not make sense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_E+6_m <-- wikipedia has it at 2800km for narrowest point 4800km is the widest width from US to N. Africa —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.142.130.28 (talk) 04:39, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

My anthropology TA - this is why I'm here - says it's thought that a chunk broke off and floated across the ocean. Still may sound improbable, but as Carl Sagan pointed out, what seems impossible in a hundred years may be inevitable in a hundred million (or ten million or WHATEVER) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.146.93.33 (talk) 22:21, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I am doing some research on the very subject (how the heck there are monkeys in S. America and Africa). So far it looks unexplained, if S. America and Africa were apart before the existence of simians. I find it highly improbable that a chunk of Africa up and drifted over to S. America, no matter what you T.A. said. And even less believable that a 'raft of vegetation' from Africa floated over on ocean currents with monkeys on it. I think it discredits the page to have the 'raft theory' on there unsupported. So I think the most probable theory is that a main monkey ancestor existed at the time the continents separated, and evolved into slightly different species on each continent. I will continue this research. Hopefully someone out there has some supporting documentation that can shed some light on the issue.QatBurglar (talk) 06:52, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The raft theory is supported by the existing evidence. The evidence includes the facts that 1. Africa and South America were much closer at the time the first monkeys appeared in South America and 2. the earliest monkeys in South America appeaered along the Atlantic coast. There is no evidence of monkeys existing in South America at the time the the two contienents were connected; in fact, no monkeys existed back that far in history. The New and Old World groups split about 40 million years ago. Africa and south America split about 140-150 million years ago. There is no way that monkeys existed on Pangaea. - UtherSRG (talk) 10:34, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Obviously the first primates didn't appear until 60 mya. But how far from Africa did S. America travel in the ~100 million years? The next step is to find out the positions of the African and S. American continents around 60-40 mya and the distance between them. If the distance is small enough, maybe the 'raft theory' is conceivable. Large clumps of trees have been known to break off from the Amazon and travel great distances on ocean currents. Also, these prehistoric trees were probably inconceivably large, probably capable of sustaining their own ecosystem for a while. Does anyone have any supporting data on either the distance between the continents or of the possibility of monkeys traveling from Africa on floating trees? - QatBurglar (talk) 15:20, 25 May 2008 (UTC)