ANT 301 Lecture Notes - Eocene, List Of Fossil Primates, Treeshrew
Document Summary
Non-avian dinosaurs go extinct along with 50-70% of all living species. Mammals survive and begin to diversify (lots of empty niche space after kt extinction ) Rodentia: euarchonta + order rodentia + order lagomorpha = euarchontoglires, these relationships suggest something interesting about where primates originated, tree shrews and flying lemurs (living and fossil) are found only in southeast. Earliest possible primate fossils: plesiadapiforms, n. american, europe, asia, oldest: 65 million years old, controversial, why from n. america, europe and asia, sea levels change and contents move, species could disperse overland across 3 continents: holarctic distribution. Latest cretaceous to paleocene- n. america: remarkable molar similarities between some paleocene plesiadapiforms and define primates from the eocene, are these molar similarities evidence for common ancestry, of the product of homoplasy (due to similar diet), palaechthon. Molar teeth relatively primate-like but anterior teeth specialized-not very primate-like bone (no postorbital bar) probably had many vibrissae / good tactile abilities.
