The oldest known anthropoid postcranial fossils and the early evolution of higher primates
Article Abstract:
Tarsals of the middle Eocene primate family Eosimiidae indicate derived anatomical traits that are otherwise limited to living and fossil anthropoids. Eosimias calcanei can be seen as belonging to haplorhine primates because of the morphology of the posterior calcaneal facet, which is quite short and broad, with only a small bony distinction between its plantar edge and the supporting bone below it. The reduction of both the medial talotibial facet and the calcaneocuboid joint surface indicates that there was less stability in sustained habitually inverted foot positions. This suggest more frequent use of horizontal foot postures than in prosimian primates.
Publication Name: Nature
Subject: Zoology and wildlife conservation
ISSN: 0028-0836
Year: 2000
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
Evolution and environment in the Hominoidea
Article Abstract:
Hominoid primates lived in Africa, Asia and Europe between 10 and 20 million years ago, but the evolutionary relationships between them and to humans and modern apes is not clear. Morphological and molecular studies have not even clearly answered the question whether gorillas or chimpanzees are closer evolutionary relatives to humans though they have established that all three are closer to each other than to orangutans. New paleoecological evidence may augment fossil discoveries to help explain these relationships notwithstanding the lack of adequate fossil records.
Publication Name: Nature
Subject: Zoology and wildlife conservation
ISSN: 0028-0836
Year: 1992
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
An Early Miocene anthropoid skull from the Chilean Andes
Article Abstract:
Analysis of the whole skull of a platyrrhine monkey fossil found in Chilean Andes, together with phylogenetic analysis of the more developed anthropoid primates, gives an insight into platyrrhine interrelationships. Radioisotopic experiments date the skull to Early Miocene age. The New World monkey's evolution includes platyrrhine morphotypes modification and a likely African origin.
Publication Name: Nature
Subject: Zoology and wildlife conservation
ISSN: 0028-0836
Year: 1995
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
- Abstracts: Nest and egg clutches of the dinosaur Troodon formosus and the evolution of avian reproductive traits. Parental care in an ornithischian dinosaur: A dramatic fossil may shed light on how modern archosaurs became devoted parents
- Abstracts: Abortion and animals: keeping women in the equation. Blocked vegetarians. The holiday table
- Abstracts: The physiology of the planet. Chill taken out of the tropics. What drives climate?
- Abstracts: The 'Daly gap' as a magmatic catastrophe. The Lu-Hf dating of garnets and the ages of the Alpine high-pressure metamorphism
- Abstracts: Structure of a viral procapsid with molecular scaffolding. Crystal structure of the met repressor-operator complex at 2.8A resolution reveals DNA recognition by beta-strands