A team of scuba divers recently made a surprise discovery - the remains of an extinct monkey in an underwater cave off the coast of the Dominican Republic.It's miraculous that they even saw it, noted Dr Alfred Rosenberger from Brooklyn College in New York who is leading the investigation.Only the second of the ancient species Antillothrix bernensis ever found, the find could bring new insight into the evolution of modern species.The fossil also adds to evidence that there were several lineages of primates in the Caribbean, instead of one ancestor that moved into the region millions of years ago from which all modern species evolved.Dr. Rosenberger said it was likely that several species traveled over the water to inhabit the island of Hispaniola.And even though these particular bones might be relatively young, we're pretty sure that the arrival of these animals occurred well over 10 million years ago.That's an exciting part of the story -- if you compare the dental remains of our monkey to other fossils that we know of, we see strong similarities with Patagonian fossils that are around 15 million years old.Enthusiasm over the find could also help bring new attention to the field of underwater palaeontology.
