Fish may have once swum across the Sahara

WASHINGTON - A new discovery that fish may have once swum across the Sahara could shed light on how humanity made its way out of Africa, say researchers.

The cradle of humanity lies south of the Sahara, which begs the question as to how humans made its way past it.

The new study has suggested that the Sahara might not have been quite as impassable as once thought-not only for humanity, but for fish as well.

“Fish appeared to have swam across the Sahara during its last wet phase sometime between 10,000 and 6,000 years ago,” Live Science quoted researcher Nick Drake, a geographer at King’s College London, as saying.

“The Sahara is not a barrier to the migrations of animals and people. Thus it is possible - likely-that early modern humans did so, and this could explain how we got out of Africa,” said Drake.

Using satellite imagery and digital maps of the landscape, the researchers have found that a dense network of rivers, lakes and inland deltas once covered the Sahara.

In their analysis, Drake and his colleagues found evidence that many creatures, including aquatic ones, dispersed across the Sahara recently.

If fish could have crossed the Sahara, it is hard to imagine that humans didn’t.

The scientists detailed their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (ANI)