6 | New Scientist | 9 November 2019
THE discovery of 11.6-million-year-
old fossils in Europe suggests that
the first apes to walk upright may
have evolved there, not Africa.
“These findings may revolutionise
our view on human evolution,”
says Madelaine Böhme at the
University of Tübingen, Germany.
Böhme and her colleagues
discovered the fossils in a clay pit
in Bavaria in southern Germany.
They found 37 bones belonging
to four individuals: an adult male,
two adult females and a juvenile.
They named the new species
Danuvius guggenmosi. It was
a small ape, weighing between
17 and 31 kilograms, and probably
ate hard foods like nuts (Nature,
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1731-0).
Surprisingly, its legs resemble
those of humans. We can fully
extend our knees, so our legs
act like pillars directly under our
bodies. Chimps can’t do this: when
they stand on two legs, their knees
stay bent. D. guggenmosi’s leg
bones suggest it could stand like a
human, prompting Böhme’s team
to argue that the ape stood andwalked upright in trees, unlike
all known apes.
This is startling because
D. guggenmosi is much older
than the oldest known hominins
that may have been bipedal:
Sahelanthropus tchadensis and
Orrorin tugenensis. Both lived
around 6 million years ago,
meaning the newly discovered
species may push back the origin
of bipedality about 5 million years.
Furthermore, the knownbipedal hominins are all African,
leading scientists to believe that
bipedality evolved there. Böhme’s
team argues that this trait arose
among European apes.
Her colleague David Begun at
the University of Toronto, Canada,
has long argued that hominins
first evolved in Europe before
moving into Africa, but this isn’t
widely accepted, largely because
the evidence is fragmentary.
Böhme says the discovery ofD. guggenmosi is “a game changer”,
but many remain sceptical.
“The fossils presented here do
not preserve convincing evidence
for bipedal locomotion,” says
Kelsey Pugh at City University
of New York. She says the hips
and feet are both crucial for this,
but aren’t among the fossils.
Others are more positive.
“This is really cool,” says John
Hawks at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. He notes
that D. guggenmosi’s shin bone
looks a lot like that of a hominin.
But he is unconvinced that
bipedality, or hominins, began
in Europe. He says that, around
11 million years ago, apes were
expanding and diversifying, so
finding a fossil in one place isn’t
proof that it originated there.
Even if bipedality or hominins
evolved in Europe, there is no
doubt both our genus and our
species originated in Africa. ❚PalaeoanthropologyMichael MarshallCHRISTOPH JÄCKLENews
The 21 bones discovered
from an adult male
Danuvius guggenmosiInfectious diseasesMany millions of pigs
wiped out as African
swine fever spreadsA QUARTER of the world’s domestic
pigs have died this year as a virus
rampages across Eurasia, and that
may be just the start. Half the pigs in
China – which last year numbered
440 million, some 50 per cent of
the world’s pigs – have either died
of African swine fever (ASF) or been
killed to stamp out the virus.
ASF comes from East Africa. In
2007, it reached Georgia in the
Caucasus in contaminated meat,
and in infected wild boar. Now, it is
all over Russia and eastern Europeand infected wild boar have turned
up as far west as Belgium. It is also
spreading in east Asia, killing many
pigs in Vietnam and elsewhere.
ASF was spotted in China
in August 2018. It is now in every
province. The virus may have
spread there from North Korea.
The only way to get rid of ASF
is to kill infected herds. But while
pigs on farms can be destroyed and
replaced, the disease persists in wild
boar and feral hogs, as well as in
meat, which is increasingly sold
abroad. “I predict ASF virus will
remain endemic for some time in
east Asia and eastern Europe, with
constant introductions around the
world,” says Dirk Pfeiffer of CityUniversity in Hong Kong. “Currently
nobody on this planet has the
solution to the problem.”
Despite years of warnings from
virologists, there is no vaccine. Most
vaccines against viruses stimulate
the body to make antibodiesagainst viral structural proteins,
such as those in the virus coating.
These then stop the virus from
entering cells, for example. But ASF,
says Linda Dixon of The Pirbright
Institute in Surrey, UK, is a large,complex virus, with two coatings
and several ways of entering cells.
Antibodies to various bits of it have
never been enough to stop it.
We will now be able to look for
better antibody targets, says Dixon,
as scientists in China and Spain
published the first detailed images
of the virus last month (Journal of
Biological Chemistry, doi.org/ddqz).
Experimental vaccines made of
live, weakened ASF have worked
better, says Dixon. These prompt
specialised blood cells to recognise
a range of viral proteins, but there
are several hurdles to developing
such vaccines for use. Meanwhile,
she fears, ASF “could go global”. ❚
Debora MacKenzieAncient European ape may have
been first to walk on two legs
“I predict the virus will keep
spreading. Nobody on this
planet has the solution to
the problem”