The oldest Asian record of Anthropoidea
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- Sunil Bajpai
- *Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee 247 667, India;
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- Richard F. Kay
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708;
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- Blythe A. Williams
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708;
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- Debasis P. Das
- *Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee 247 667, India;
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- Vivesh V. Kapur
- 2815 Sector 40-C Chandigarh, India; and
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- B. N. Tiwari
- Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun, 248001, India
Abstract
<jats:p> Undisputed anthropoids appear in the fossil record of Africa and Asia by the middle Eocene, about 45 Ma. Here, we report the discovery of an early Eocene eosimiid anthropoid primate from India, named <jats:italic>Anthrasimias</jats:italic> , that extends the Asian fossil record of anthropoids by 9–10 million years. A phylogenetic analysis of 75 taxa and 343 characters of the skull, postcranium, and dentition of <jats:italic>Anthrasimias</jats:italic> and living and fossil primates indicates the basal placement of <jats:italic>Anthrasimias</jats:italic> among eosimiids, confirms the anthropoid status of Eosimiidae, and suggests that crown haplorhines (tarsiers and monkeys) are the sister clade of Omomyoidea of the Eocene, not nested within an omomyoid clade. Co-occurence of Anthropoidea, Omomyoidea, and Adapoidea makes it evident that peninsular India was an important center for the diversification of primates of modern aspect (euprimates) in the early Eocene. Adaptive reconstructions indicate that early anthropoids were mouse–lemur-sized (≈75 grams) and consumed a mixed diet of fruit and insects. Eosimiids bear little adaptive resemblance to later Eocene-early Oligocene African Anthropoidea. </jats:p>
Journal
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- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105 (32), 11093-11098, 2008-08-12
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
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Keywords
Details 詳細情報について
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- CRID
- 1360855569277806976
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- ISSN
- 10916490
- 00278424
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- Data Source
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- Crossref