Evolution of primates

Phylogenetic tree of the primates
Notharctus

The evolutionary history of the primates can be traced back 57-90 million years.[1] One of the oldest known primate-like mammal species, Plesiadapis, came from North America;[2] another, Archicebus, came from China.[3] Other similar basal primates were widespread in Eurasia and Africa during the tropical conditions of the Paleocene and Eocene. Purgatorius is the genus of the four extinct species believed to be the earliest example of a primate or a proto-primate, a primatomorph precursor to the Plesiadapiformes, dating to as old as 66 million years ago.

The surviving tropical population of primates, which is seen most completely in the upper Eocene and lowermost Oligocene fossil beds of the Faiyum depression southwest of Cairo, gave rise to all living species—lemurs of Madagascar, lorises of Southeast Asia, galagos or "bush babies" of Africa, and the anthropoids: platyrrhine or New World monkeys, catarrhines or Old World monkeys, and the African great apes, which includes Homo sapiens.

  1. ^ Maxwell 1984, p. 296
    • Rui Zhang; Yin-Qiu Wang; Bing Su (July 2008). "Molecular Evolution of a Primate-Specific microRNA Family". Molecular Biology and Evolution. 25 (7). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution: 1493–1502. doi:10.1093/molbev/msn094. ISSN 0737-4038. PMID 18417486. Pdf
    • Willoughby, Pamela R. (2005). "Palaeoanthropology and the Evolutionary Place of Humans in Nature". International Journal of Comparative Psychology. 18 (1). International Society for Comparative Psychology: 60–91. doi:10.46867/IJCP.2005.18.01.02. ISSN 0889-3667. Retrieved 2015-04-27.
    • Martin 2001, pp. 12032–12038
    • Tavaré, Simon; Marshall, Charles R.; Will, Oliver; et al. (April 18, 2002). "Using the fossil record to estimate the age of the last common ancestor of extant primates". Nature. 416 (6882). London: Nature Publishing Group: 726–729. Bibcode:2002Natur.416..726T. doi:10.1038/416726a. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 11961552. S2CID 4368374.
  2. ^ Rose, Kenneth D. (1994). "The earliest primates". Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews. 3 (5). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons: 159–173. doi:10.1002/evan.1360030505. ISSN 1060-1538. S2CID 85035753.
  3. ^ Wilford, J. N. (June 5, 2013). "Palm-size fossil resets primates' clock, scientists say". The New York Times. Retrieved June 5, 2013.

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