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Primates in the Eocene

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Abstract

The mammalian order Primates made its first appearance in the fossil record during the Paleocene–Eocene thermal maximum (PETM), the global greenhouse warming event that marks the beginning of the Eocene. Two primate superfamilies, Tarsioidea and Adapoidea, dominate early and middle Eocene primate faunas. Warm climates enabled primates to thrive, and warming events within the Eocene facilitated cosmopolitan dispersal. Declining diversity at the end of the Eocene reflects environmental cooling. Fossils of earliest Tarsioidea and Adapoidea are similar dentally, often confused, and appear closely related as stem or crown Haplorhini. The superfamily Tarsioidea is represented by a single genus, Tarsius, living today, while Adapoidea appear to be ancestral to living Anthropoidea. Little is known of the Eocene history of strepsirrhine Lemuroidea and Lorisoidea. Temporal scaling of molecular clock ages suggests that Strepsirrhini appeared before Haplorhini in the Paleocene or possibly with Haplorhini at the beginning of the Eocene. Substantial skeletons of Eocene primates like those of adapoid Darwinius and Europolemur from Messel in Germany and Notharctus and Smilodectes from western North America constrain phylogenetic interpretation of primate relationships much more than dental remains ever can. A specialised grasping foot distinguishes early primates from other mammals. Traits associated in a functional complex include replacement of claws by nails on all digits; movement of the pedal fulcrum from the metatarsals to the tarsals; elongation of digit IV relative to digit III, with reduction of digit II and sometimes III; and then secondary development of a grooming claw or claws on digits II and sometimes III. The specialised grasping foot of early primates was later moderated in the emergence of anthropoid primates.

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Acknowledgments

My research on Messel fossils has been supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung. I am greatly indebted to Wighart von Koenigswald for collaboration in Bonn, and Jörg Habersetzer for collaboration in Frankfurt. I thank Jørn Hurum for including me in the team studying Darwinius, and Jens Franzen, Jörg Habersetzer, Jørn Hurum, Wighart von Koenigswald, and B. Holly Smith for making study of Darwinius so interesting and informative. William Jungers generously provided access to comparative measurements required to undertake the principal components analysis in Fig. 7, and JoAnn Ballor, Gregg Gunnell, and William Sanders made inclusion of Smilodectes possible. Bonnie Miljour assisted in preparing all figures included here. I thank Wighart von Koenigswald and an anonymous referee for critical reviews of the manuscript.

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  1. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan, 1109 Geddes Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109-1079, USA

    Philip D. Gingerich

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This article is a contribution to the special issue “Messel and the terrestrial Eocene - Proceedings of the 22nd Senckenberg Conference”

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Gingerich, P.D. Primates in the Eocene. Palaeobio Palaeoenv 92, 649–663 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12549-012-0093-5

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