A Fossil Primate of Uncertain Affinities from the Earliest Late Eocene of Egypt
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The World at the Time of Messel: Conference Volume
T. Lehmann & S.F.K. Schaal (eds) The World at the Time of Messel - Conference Volume Time at the The World The World at the Time of Messel: Puzzles in Palaeobiology, Palaeoenvironment and the History of Early Primates 22nd International Senckenberg Conference 2011 Frankfurt am Main, 15th - 19th November 2011 ISBN 978-3-929907-86-5 Conference Volume SENCKENBERG Gesellschaft für Naturforschung THOMAS LEHMANN & STEPHAN F.K. SCHAAL (eds) The World at the Time of Messel: Puzzles in Palaeobiology, Palaeoenvironment, and the History of Early Primates 22nd International Senckenberg Conference Frankfurt am Main, 15th – 19th November 2011 Conference Volume Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung IMPRINT The World at the Time of Messel: Puzzles in Palaeobiology, Palaeoenvironment, and the History of Early Primates 22nd International Senckenberg Conference 15th – 19th November 2011, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Conference Volume Publisher PROF. DR. DR. H.C. VOLKER MOSBRUGGER Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung Senckenberganlage 25, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany Editors DR. THOMAS LEHMANN & DR. STEPHAN F.K. SCHAAL Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt Senckenberganlage 25, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany [email protected]; [email protected] Language editors JOSEPH E.B. HOGAN & DR. KRISTER T. SMITH Layout JULIANE EBERHARDT & ANIKA VOGEL Cover Illustration EVELINE JUNQUEIRA Print Rhein-Main-Geschäftsdrucke, Hofheim-Wallau, Germany Citation LEHMANN, T. & SCHAAL, S.F.K. (eds) (2011). The World at the Time of Messel: Puzzles in Palaeobiology, Palaeoenvironment, and the History of Early Primates. 22nd International Senckenberg Conference. 15th – 19th November 2011, Frankfurt am Main. Conference Volume. Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung, Frankfurt am Main. pp. 203. -
From the Gulf Coastal Plain
Bull. Fla. Mus. Nat. Hist. (2005) 45(4): 355-361 355 EKGMOWECHASHALA (MAMMALIA, ?PRIMATES) FROM THE GULF COASTAL PLAIN L. Barry Albright III1 A single, small, water-worn tooth from the “middle” Arikareean Toledo Bend Local Fauna of the Gulf Coastal Plain closely resembles the lower fourth premolar of the questionable primate Ekgmowechashala. The only known species of the genus, Ekgmowechashala philotau Macdonald (1963), was originally recovered from the early Arikareean Sharps Formation of South Dakota, but is also known from similar aged strata of the John Day Formation, Oregon. Although the Toledo Bend specimen differs somewhat in morphology from the p4 of E. philotau, a new species is not named in this report because of such limited material and because the specimen is incomplete. Unfortunately, the specimen does not provide information that helps clarify current arguments regarding the affinities of Ekgmowechashala with primates or plagiomenids. It does, however, provide (1) a temporal range extension for the genus to the early late Arikareean, or about four million years younger than previously known, and (2) a geographic extension east and considerably south of its prior distribution. If Ekgmowechashala is ultimately deter- mined to belong to the Primates, then the Toledo Bend species would become the last known North American representative of the order. Key Words: Ekgmowechashala; Primates; Plagiomenidae; Texas Gulf Coastal Plain; Arikareean INTRODUCTION brate paleontology collections of the Louisiana State Uni- In 1990, while screen-washing matrix from the “middle” versity Museum of Geoscience (LSUMG V). Arikareean Toledo Bend site in the Fleming Formation of easternmost Texas (Albright 1994, 1996, 1998a, 1998b, BACKGROUND 1999), a small, unusual, water-worn tooth was recov- Ekgmowechashala philotau is a small “enigmatic late ered that differed considerably from the site’s more com- Oligocene mammal” (McKenna, 1990:226) heretofore mon and readily identifiable rodent teeth. -
Convergent Evolution of Olfactory and Thermoregulatory Capacities in Small Amphibious Mammals
Convergent evolution of olfactory and thermoregulatory capacities in small amphibious mammals Quentin Martineza,1, Julien Clavelb,c, Jacob A. Esselstynd,e, Anang S. Achmadif, Camille Grohég,h, Nelly Piroti,j, and Pierre-Henri Fabrea,k aInstitut des Sciences de l’Évolution de Montpellier (ISEM), CNRS, Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD), Université de Montpellier (UM), UMR 5554, 34095 Montpellier, France; bDepartment of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum, SW7 5DB London, United Kingdom; cUniv. Lyon Laboratoire d’Ecologie des Hydrosystèmes Naturels et Anthropisés, UMR CNRS 5023, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, École Nationale des Travaux Publics de l’État (ENTPE), F‐69622 Villeurbanne, Cedex, France; dMuseum of Natural Science, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803; eDepartment of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803; fMuseum Zoologicum Bogoriense, Research Center for Biology, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), 16911 Cibinong, Indonesia; gDivision of Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY 10024; hLaboratoire Paléontologie Évolution Paléoécosystèmes Paléoprimatologie (PALEVOPRIM, UMR 7262, CNRS-Institut écologie et environnement [INEE]), Université de Poitiers, 86073 Poitiers, Cedex 9, France; iInstitut de Recherche en Cancérologie de Montpellier (IRCM), INSERM, U1194 UM, Institut du Cancer de Montpellier (ICM), F-34298 Montpellier, Cedex 5, France; jRéseau d’Histologie Expérimentale de Montpellier, UMS3426 CNRS-US009 INSERM-UM, 34298 Montpellier, France; and kMammal Section, Department of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum, SW7 5DB London, United Kingdom Edited by David B. Wake, University of California, Berkeley, CA, and approved February 28, 2020 (received for review October 11, 2019) Olfaction and thermoregulation are key functions for mammals. The partitioning has been documented in histological, airflow dynamic, former is critical to feeding, mating, and predator avoidance behaviors, and performance test studies (9–13). -
8. Primate Evolution
8. Primate Evolution Jonathan M. G. Perry, Ph.D., The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Stephanie L. Canington, B.A., The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Learning Objectives • Understand the major trends in primate evolution from the origin of primates to the origin of our own species • Learn about primate adaptations and how they characterize major primate groups • Discuss the kinds of evidence that anthropologists use to find out how extinct primates are related to each other and to living primates • Recognize how the changing geography and climate of Earth have influenced where and when primates have thrived or gone extinct The first fifty million years of primate evolution was a series of adaptive radiations leading to the diversification of the earliest lemurs, monkeys, and apes. The primate story begins in the canopy and understory of conifer-dominated forests, with our small, furtive ancestors subsisting at night, beneath the notice of day-active dinosaurs. From the archaic plesiadapiforms (archaic primates) to the earliest groups of true primates (euprimates), the origin of our own order is characterized by the struggle for new food sources and microhabitats in the arboreal setting. Climate change forced major extinctions as the northern continents became increasingly dry, cold, and seasonal and as tropical rainforests gave way to deciduous forests, woodlands, and eventually grasslands. Lemurs, lorises, and tarsiers—once diverse groups containing many species—became rare, except for lemurs in Madagascar where there were no anthropoid competitors and perhaps few predators. Meanwhile, anthropoids (monkeys and apes) emerged in the Old World, then dispersed across parts of the northern hemisphere, Africa, and ultimately South America. -
Early Eocene Primates from Gujarat, India
ARTICLE IN PRESS Journal of Human Evolution xxx (2009) 1–39 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Human Evolution journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhevol Early Eocene Primates from Gujarat, India Kenneth D. Rose a,*, Rajendra S. Rana b, Ashok Sahni c, Kishor Kumar d, Pieter Missiaen e, Lachham Singh b, Thierry Smith f a Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21205, USA b H.N.B. Garhwal University, Srinagar 246175, Uttarakhand, India c Panjab University, Chandigarh 160014, India d Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun 248001, Uttarakhand, India e University of Ghent, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium f Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, B-1000 Brussels, Belgium article info abstract Article history: The oldest euprimates known from India come from the Early Eocene Cambay Formation at Vastan Mine Received 24 June 2008 in Gujarat. An Ypresian (early Cuisian) age of w53 Ma (based on foraminifera) indicates that these Accepted 8 January 2009 primates were roughly contemporary with, or perhaps predated, the India-Asia collision. Here we present new euprimate fossils from Vastan Mine, including teeth, jaws, and referred postcrania of the Keywords: adapoids Marcgodinotius indicus and Asiadapis cambayensis. They are placed in the new subfamily Eocene Asiadapinae (family Notharctidae), which is most similar to primitive European Cercamoniinae such as India Donrussellia and Protoadapis. Asiadapines were small primates in the size range of extant smaller Notharctidae Adapoidea bushbabies. Despite their generally very plesiomorphic morphology, asiadapines also share a few derived Omomyidae dental traits with sivaladapids, suggesting a possible relationship to these endemic Asian adapoids. In Eosimiidae addition to the adapoids, a new species of the omomyid Vastanomys is described. -
Paleo-The Story of Life
PALEO: THE STORY OF LIFE Life on Earth has not always existed as it currently does. The fact that life began on Earth in the first place is miraculous due to the environmental factors needed for its beginnings and sustainability. The relentless pursuit of life over billions of years from small living molecules to complex creatures roaming, flying and swimming throughout the Earth has culminated into the current state of life’s existence as we know it on the planet we call home. Paleo: The Story of Life is a 3,000-square-foot exhibit, spanning 4.6 billion years in scope. The exhibit presents casts of 128 rare fossils, including Lucy, Archaeopteryx and T rex, among many others. Drawn from the world’s foremost fossil collections, the Paleo exhibit showcases casts of rare fossils from the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia – skeletons, skulls, claws and eggs gathered from prestigious museums, including the Smithsonian Institution, American Museum of Natural History, Royal Ontario Museum and Carnegie Museum, among others. Rarely available for viewing outside of their respective museums, these compelling artifacts are presented exclusively in Paleo: The Story of Life. Fossils range from the earliest invertebrate marine life through the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous dinosaurs to mammals and prehistoric humans. Paleo: The Story of Life explores the comprehensive story of prehistoric life on Earth. The Paleo exhibit is a visiting exhibit and will be on display through Thursday, May 31, 2018. It is located in the Horowitz Traveling Exhibit Area. The MOST presents Paleo: The Story of Life in association with the International Museum Institute, Inc. -
Cranial Remains of an Eocene Tarsier
Cranial remains of an Eocene tarsier James B. Rossie*†, Xijun Ni‡, and K. Christopher Beard§ *Department of Anthropology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794; ‡Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 643, Beijing 100044, China; §Section of Vertebrate Paleontology, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 4400 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 Edited by Alan Walker, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, and approved January 30, 2006 (received for review October 28, 2005) The phylogenetic position of tarsiers relative to anthropoids and Paleogene omomyids remains a subject of lively debate that lies at the center of research into anthropoid origins. Omomyids have long been regarded as the nearest relatives of tarsiers, but a sister group relationship between anthropoids and tarsiers has also been proposed. These conflicting phylogenetic reconstructions rely heavily on comparisons of cranial anatomy, but until now, the fossil record of tarsiers has been limited to a single jaw and several isolated teeth. In this article, we describe cranial material of a fossil tarsiid from the middle-Eocene Shanghuang fissure-fillings in southern Jiangsu Province, China. This facial fragment, which is allocated to Tarsius eocaenus, is virtually identical to the corre- sponding anatomy in living tarsiers and differs substantially from that of early anthropoids such as Bahinia, Phenacopithecus, and Parapithecus. This new specimen indicates that tarsiers already possessed greatly enlarged orbits and a haplorhine oronasal con- figuration by the time they are first documented in the fossil record during the middle Eocene. China ͉ primate ͉ tarsiid ack of consensus regarding the interrelationships among Lanthropoids, tarsiids, and omomyids is largely due to con- tradictory similarities among the three groups in cranial anat- omy. -
Evolutionary History of Lorisiform Primates
Evolution: Reviewed Article Folia Primatol 1998;69(suppl 1):250–285 oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Evolutionary History of Lorisiform Primates D. Tab Rasmussen, Kimberley A. Nekaris Department of Anthropology, Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., USA Key Words Lorisidae · Strepsirhini · Plesiopithecus · Mioeuoticus · Progalago · Galago · Vertebrate paleontology · Phylogeny · Primate adaptation Abstract We integrate information from the fossil record, morphology, behavior and mo- lecular studies to provide a current overview of lorisoid evolution. Several Eocene prosimians of the northern continents, including both omomyids and adapoids, have been suggested as possible lorisoid ancestors, but these cannot be substantiated as true strepsirhines. A small-bodied primate, Anchomomys, of the middle Eocene of Europe may be the best candidate among putative adapoids for status as a true strepsirhine. Recent finds of Eocene primates in Africa have revealed new prosimian taxa that are also viable contenders for strepsirhine status. Plesiopithecus teras is a Nycticebus- sized, nocturnal prosimian from the late Eocene, Fayum, Egypt, that shares cranial specializations with lorisoids, but it also retains primitive features (e.g. four premo- lars) and has unique specializations of the anterior teeth excluding it from direct lorisi- form ancestry. Another unnamed Fayum primate resembles modern cheirogaleids in dental structure and body size. Two genera from Oman, Omanodon and Shizarodon, also reveal a mix of similarities to both cheirogaleids and anchomomyin adapoids. Resolving the phylogenetic position of these Africa primates of the early Tertiary will surely require more and better fossils. By the early to middle Miocene, lorisoids were well established in East Africa, and the debate about whether these represent lorisines or galagines is reviewed. -
The Oldest Asian Record of Anthropoidea
The oldest Asian record of Anthropoidea Sunil Bajpai*, Richard F. Kay†‡, Blythe A. Williams‡, Debasis P. Das*, Vivesh V. Kapur§, and B. N. Tiwari¶ *Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee 247 667, India; ‡Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708; §2815 Sector 40-C Chandigarh, India; and ¶Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun, 248001, India Edited by Alan Walker, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, and approved June 19, 2008 (received for review May 2, 2008) Undisputed anthropoids appear in the fossil record of Africa and Asia (14), which is outside the range of extant insectivorous primates by the middle Eocene, about 45 Ma. Here, we report the discovery of (15). Body mass reconstruction of 1 kg for ancestral primates an early Eocene eosimiid anthropoid primate from India, named tends to rule out the visual predation hypothesis and supports, Anthrasimias, that extends the Asian fossil record of anthropoids by by implication, an alternative hypothesis that links novel primate 9–10 million years. A phylogenetic analysis of 75 taxa and 343 adaptations with the coevolution of angiosperms (16). In addi- characters of the skull, postcranium, and dentition of Anthrasimias tion to Anthrasimias, four other basal primates are known from and living and fossil primates indicates the basal placement of the same stratigraphic level in the Vastan mine and represent Anthrasimias among eosimiids, confirms the anthropoid status of Omomyoidea (Vastanomys, Suratius, compare with Omomy- Eosimiidae, and suggests that crown haplorhines (tarsiers and mon- oidea) and Adapoidea (Marcgodinotius and Asiadapis) (4–6). keys) are the sister clade of Omomyoidea of the Eocene, not nested Reconstructions of body mass and diet for these and other within an omomyoid clade. -
The First Virtual Endocasts of North American Adapiform Primates
THE FIRST VIRTUAL ENDOCASTS OF NORTH AMERICAN ADAPIFORM PRIMATES By ARIANNA R. HARRINGTON A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF THE MASTER OF SCIENCE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2015 © 2015 Arianna R. Harrington ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to full-heartedly thank Dr. Jonathan Bloch of the Florida Museum of Natural History for serving as my primary advisor and committee chair, and Dr. Bruce MacFadden of the Florida Museum of Natural History and Dr. David Daegling of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Florida for serving on my committee. I would like to thank all three of my committee members for their time and helpful suggestions with my project and this manuscript. I would also like to thank Dr. Mary Silcox of the University of Toronto, Scarborough, for her help, advice, and training with regards to the reconstruction of virtual endocasts, Dr. Douglas Boyer of Duke University for help acquiring, scanning, and facilitating access to specimens used for this study, and Gabriel Yapuncich of Duke University for helpful conversations about body mass estimation. I would also like to thank my family and friends for their support during the course of my education. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................................3 LIST OF TABLES ...........................................................................................................................6 -
Aegyptopithecus and Proconsul
Correlation of Tooth Size and Body Size in Living Hominoid Primates, with a Note on Relative Brain Size in Aegyptopithecus and Proconsul PHILIP D. GINGERICH Museum of Paleontology, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 KEY WORDS Tooth size a Body size - Hominoidea . Aegrp- topithecus . Proconsul . Relative brain size ABSTRACT Second molar length and body weight are used to test the corre- lation between tooth size and body size in living Hominoidea. These variates are highly correlated G. = 0.942,~< 0.001),indicating that tooth size can be used in dentally unspecialized fossil hominoids as one method of predicting the average body weight of species. Based on tooth size, the average body weight of Aegyp- topithecus zeuxis is estimated to have been between 4.5 and 7.5 kg, which is cor- roborated by known cranial and postcranial elements. Using Radinsky's esti- mates of brain size, the encephalization quotient (EQ) for Aegyptopithecus was between 0.65 and 1.04. A similar analysis for Proconsul africanus yields a body weight between 16 and 34 kg, and an EQ between 1.19 and 1.96. Dental enamel is the hardest and densest that attempts to infer body size from tooth tissue in the mammalian skeleton, and as a size in fossil hominoid primates are unjusti- result teeth are the most commonly preserved fied. However, the correlation of body size remains of mammals in the fossil record. Most with tooth size across species of a superfamily mammalian teeth do not continue to grow like the Hominoidea is not the same as the during life-once the teeth have formed and correlation of these variables within a species. -
A Fossil Primate of Uncertain Affinities from the Earliest Late Eocene of Egypt
A fossil primate of uncertain affinities from the earliest late Eocene of Egypt Erik R. Seifferta,1, Elwyn L. Simonsb,1, Doug M. Boyerc, Jonathan M. G. Perryd, Timothy M. Ryane, and Hesham M. Sallamf aDepartment of Anatomical Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-8081; bDivision of Fossil Primates, Duke Lemur Center, Durham, NC 27705; cDepartment of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-5245; dDepartment of Anatomy, Midwestern University, Downers Grove, IL 60515; eDepartment of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802; and fDepartment of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PR, United Kingdom Contributed by Elwyn L. Simons, February 18, 2010 (sent for review January 5, 2010) Paleontological work carried out over the last 3 decades has es- as caenopithecines are likely derived from an independent colo- tablished that three major primate groups were present in the Eocene nization from Europe or Asia. The timing of anthropoids’ arrival in of Africa—anthropoids, adapiforms, and advanced strepsirrhines. Afro-Arabia is unclear, but the presence of multiple anthropoid Here we describe isolated teeth of a previously undocumented pri- species at BQ-2 supports a colonization in the late middle Eocene mate from the earliest late Eocene (≈37 Ma) of northern Egypt, Nos- or earlier. mips aenigmaticus, whose phylogenetic placement within Primates is Here we describe a rare and enigmatic primate species from BQ-2 unclear. Nosmips is smaller than the sympatric adapiform Afradapis that, unlike other primates from theEoceneofAfrica,doesnotfit but is considerably larger than other primate taxa known from the unambiguously into either Anthropoidea or Strepsirrhini on the basis same paleocommunity.