Monkeys Rafting the Atlantic Ocean?
"Whatcha doing with those logs, Sid?""Oh, hey, Trevor. I'm lashing them together so I can make a raft and go out yonder on the Atlantic. Gonna bring along some of those rat things for company. Wanna come along?""It's a mite tempting, but whoever heard of monkeys taking a trip on a raft? I'll stay here. Got evolving and stuff to do."
Years ago, I posted about critters rafting, and folks with Atheism Spectrum Disorder used prejudicial conjecture as a ridicule device. While raft has connotations of a small floating object, the rafts under discussion are often quite massive.
Rafts, morgueFile / stickerstack |
It is interesting that one specific conjecture has some weak reasoning. An animal like a marmoset was in both North Africa and South America. Researchers studied remains of some, especially the teeth. Dating was done through computer analysis, and some risible claims about extant DNA were used. What best explains the presence of those monkeys is the activity of the Genesis Flood.
In this latest example, the evidence consists of four tiny molar teeth of an extinct variety of small monkey (Ucayalipithecus perdita) thought to be similar to modern marmosets (figure 1). These were discovered in river sediments in Amazonian Peru. The teeth were “almost identical” (in size, shape, and distinctive ridges) to a similar species (Qatrania wingi) known from North African fossils (Egypt, Libya, and Tanzania). The report stated the findings were “entirely unexpected” and that without the fossil findings “it could not have been predicted” that African monkeys were living alongside Peruvian ones. It also mentions other instances of transatlantic animal migration, specifically New World monkeys and rodents similar to capybaras. All these animals, the report states, must have travelled across the Atlantic on rafts of vegetation.
The entire article is found at "Transatlantic rafting monkeys" — which would also be a good name for a rock band.