Unidentified DNA found in the population of the South Pacific

Science Nilgun Salim
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The genes of an extinct species, unidentified yet, were found in the Melanesian DNA, the population being located in the South Pacific.

According to the new research, this species did not belong to the Neanderthal or Denisovan but could represent a third species, unidentified so far.

Ryan Bohlender, a geneticist at the University of Texas, said that ‘perhaps we have missed a species or omitted links between species.

He and his team tried to find out the percentage of DNA specific in hominids that people today still do have and the result was represented by discrepancies revealing that the pairing of our ancestors with the Neanderthals and the Denisovans is, in fact, the primary explanation.

It is believed that, as far as 10,000 years to 60,000 years ago, they migrated from Africa and had contacts with the populations living in Eurasia and these contacts have left a footprint specified in our DNA that lasts until today, Europeans and Asians having the Neanderthal genetic distinct genes.

Moreover, researchers discovered earlier this year that Europeans have inherited from Neanderthal genes that put them at the disposition emergence of diseases and increased risk of depression. The percentage of DNA that Europeans and Asians have inherited from them is of 2.8%.

But when it comes to the DNA inherited from the Denisovans, things get a bit more complicated, especially for the population of Melanesia, an area in the South Pacific that includes Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, Papua Western, and Maluku Islands.

One of the researchers involved in the project said: ‘Europeans show no genes of the Denisovans and the population in China only a very small percentage, of 0.1%. However, the Melanesian have a percentage of 1.11%.’

After these investigations, those who started the study concluded that the three species would have much to do with the current population of the Melanesians.

Interaction with other prehistoric ancestor species may have been more complex than we had expected and even if there were no findings that show the existence of other species, that does not mean they did not exist.