by possumMy roommate told me recently about a water ape from which a few scientist think humans evolved. Something about apes not instinctively holding their breath or swimming or something.
If you look at an apes foot, it is basically a foot that has long toes and can grip tree branches. It could have been an upright walking creature, that eventually went into the trees. As in it looks as if it were a foot, and then adapted to become a hand for tree life.
Why would any creature go into the trees?
Probably because of global (large scale regional) flooding...
See... it has a heel, and that heel is capable of upright walking.
So... what makes sense? Did they start in the trees, and then make their way onto land and then decide to walk upright?
Or... did they walk upright, then decide to go into the trees, and so on...
Sloths live in areas that are basically like swamps. Different line of evolution, but they hang from trees in ancient swamps... or if you prefer... ancient flooded plains...
I'm stretching the truth, because I really don't know the full range or habit of the sloth.
Hey Possum, maybe the apes went into the trees to avoid predators, and maybe other monkeys or missing links did it to escape floods, hence thier aquatic backgrounds? I don't know absolutely...
It's probably both. With flooding, comes swamp predators, so animals that previously could climb trees to reach higher leaves for nutrition and such, probably began to stay there.