ANTH 1001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Paleocene, Plesiadapiformes, Adaptive Radiation
Document Summary
Fossil evidence shows that earliest primates were nocturnal and had adaptations for insectivore and fruit-eating. Primates evolved as either or exploding insects or exploiting fruit most likely explanation is the mix of all the visual predation and angiosperm exploitation hypotheses. Paleocene: euprimates (before primates, not actual primates): primitive, they retain a number of ancestral mammalian traits. Eocene: first (undisputed) primates adapoids: elongated snouts, many were diurnal (small orbits), lack derived features of strepsirrhines or halporrhines and probably ancestral to strepsirrhines. Eocene: first (undisputed) primates omomyoids: short snout, nocturnal (large orbits), small, primarily insectivorous and possible relationship with haplorrhines (long tarsal bones as in modern tarsiers) Oligocene: anthropoid origins: marked cooling and drying trend at the end of the. Extinction of certain species and evolution of new ones. Extant apes ( hominoid ): monkeys above branches, apes below branches: apes no tail, long exible arms and scapula is dorsal vs monkeys use tail for balance, forelimbs=hindlimbs and scapula is lateral.
