Between 6.4 and 5.8 million years ago, most of the land bridge that connects North and South America had already emerged and the channels connecting both Pacific and Atlantic oceans were shallow. Recent fossil discoveries in the northern Panama Canal area suggest that marine species interchange persisted across these shallow waters during the final stages of formation of the isthmus. In 2017 and 2019, Aldo Benites-Palomino was studying fossils collected in Caribbean Panama, when he came across some unexpected specimens.

https://www.miragenews.com/marine-fossils-unearth-story-of-panamas-deep-1045783/

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