Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 112, Issue 5, Pages 1487-1492Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1421707112
Keywords
Euarchonta; Primates; Paleocene; paleontology; evolution
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation (NSF) [SBE-1028505]
- Leakey Foundation
- Brooklyn College Tow Faculty Travel Fellowship
- NSF [SBR-9616194, BCS 1317525, EAR 9505847]
- Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies
- Doris O. and Samuel P. Welles Research Fund
- University of California Museum of Paleontology
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Earliest Paleocene Purgatorius often is regarded as the geologically oldest primate, but it has been known only from fossilized dentitions since it was first described half a century ago. The dentition of Purgatorius is more primitive than those of all known living and fossil primates, leading some researchers to suggest that it lies near the ancestry of all other primates; however, others have questioned its affinities to primates or even to placental mammals. Here we report the first (to our knowledge) nondental remains (tarsal bones) attributed to Purgatorius from the same earliest Paleocene deposits that have yielded numerous fossil dentitions of this poorly known mammal. Three independent phylogenetic analyses that incorporate new data from these fossils support primate affinities of Purgatorius among euarchontan mammals (primates, treeshrews, and colugos). Astragali and calcanei attributed to Purgatorius indicate a mobile ankle typical of arboreal euarchontan mammals generally and of Paleocene and Eocene plesiadapiforms specifically and provide the earliest fossil evidence of arboreality in primates and other euarchontan mammals. Postcranial specializations for arboreality in the earliest primates likely played a key role in the evolutionary success of this mammalian radiation in the Paleocene.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available