


‘‘It’s a close cousin in fact,’’ said study author Christopher Beard, curator at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. He said it is ‘‘the closest thing we have to an ancestor of humans’’ so long ago.

Primate is the order of life that includes humans along with apes, monkeys, and lemurs. Humans and other primates are set apart from other mammals because of our grasping five fingers and toes, nails, and forward-facing eyes. And this new species called Archicebus achilles fits right in, Beard said.


‘‘It’s a cute little thing; it’s ridiculously little,’’ Beard said. ‘‘That’s one of the more important scientific aspects of the whole story.’’


Because it was so small and warm-blooded, it had to eat bugs and move constantly to keep from losing internal heat, Beard said.

That means, Beard said, our earliest primate relatives were ‘‘very frenetic creatures, anxious, highly caffeinated animals running around looking for their next meal.’’ They lived in a tree-lined area near a Chinese lake, swinging around trees in a hotter climate, Beard said.



