50 Million years later, rodents are vindicated.
Rodents didn’t kill off primeval primates 50 million years ago. Mysterious events led to the extermination of many species of primitive primates in North America, before a rise in carbon dioxide and average temperatures. A new study of fossilized molars shows that competition with rodents likely wasn’t the cause of these primate losses. Dental clues show that most of the animals had eaten different foods, or didn’t live at the same time. The old theories suggested that stem primates who had long, grasping fingers but resembled rodents, were killed off by competition with rodents for food. Rodents needn’t take the blame any longer and therefore something else must have been the driving force.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/50-million-years-later-rodents-vindicated-randy-bilesky?published=t
http://www.delta-optimist.com/opinion/blogs/blog-50-million-years-later-rodents-are-vindicated-1.2194439
