Science
Monkeys Reached South America by Rafting on Vegetation From Africa
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The mass extinction that accidentally created the dinosaurs | Steve Brusatte
"It seems like the only way is through one of these Hail Mary dispersals where there are some of these mammals, maybe after a storm, maybe they're on a raft of vegetation, sometimes big chunks of the coast, trees and grass and all kinds of stuff can be ripped apart, thrust out into the ocean, and can actually travel the currents for many weeks and then land somewhere in a distant land. And that seems to be how the rodents and the primates got to South America."
DNA analysis proves South American monkeys and rodents are closely related to African species, leading scientists to conclude they reached South America by accidentally rafting on storm-torn vegetation across the Atlantic Ocean. Brusatte calls these extremely rare but evolutionarily significant events "Hail Mary dispersals" that, given enough millions of years, occasionally succeed.
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