Island Hoping

Expansion paper 2 : Island Hoping; Not Just for Cruise liners Unfortunately there is great debate in how Platyrrhine monkeys came to inhabit the America’s or for what reason. Seeing how South America at that time was quite isolated after it’s separation from Africa during the Mesozoic era and the earliest fossil record indicate the first primates were not found there until the late Oligocene ephoch, this left many to theorize about how they may have reached such a secluded land. One theory by scientist is that the primates rafted from Africa by make-shift vegetation rafts or accidental rafting across the Atlantic Ocean rafting from one island to the next that the ocean current drifted them to.
Adaptation being the reasons for the need to leave, due to the formation of the Himalayan chain of mountains when India crashed into Asia. The result would have changed weather patterns when the newly formed mountains significantly blocked summer monsoonal rains and other global climate changes. The changing climate would have pushed primates from the northern areas. As climate changes continued polar ice caps grew and sea level dropped, exposing more of previously submerged land, creating island chains which corresponds to this theory. This theory has been scrutinized by many scientist. There is no fossil evidence supporting this theory, and the lack of ability of monkeys to swim makes it very hard to believe. The island hopping theory is more of a “raffle” or “lottery”, the chances of such an event are one in a billion but given enough time and opportunities the chances begin to increase. However for enough of the same species of the same primate to travel the same way and come to the same place, enough to reproduce, not become lunch for new predators in an alien land, and to expand the species is highly unlikely. The first fossil records in the Americas date back to 25 million years ago and help give a better understanding of the origins of the New