Primate origins, human origins, and the end of higher taxa

Cartmill, Matt

doi:10.1002/evan.21324

Cited by 89 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 101 publications

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“…Therefore, the postcranial specializations for arboreality documented in Purgatorius would have allowed this animal to access resources that were not directly available to many contemporary terrestrial mammals, such as Protungulatum. The fossil record provides a direct test to evaluate adaptive scenarios, however incremental (8), and future recovery and analysis of early euarchontan fossils will continue to improve our understanding of primate origins. The previously unidentified fossils of Purgatorius described here suggest that the divergence of primates from other mammals was not a dramatic event.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oldest known euarchontan tarsals and affinities of Paleocene Purgatorius to Primates

Chester

Bloch

Boyer

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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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.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oldest known euarchontan tarsals and affinities of Paleocene Purgatorius to Primates

Chester

Bloch

Boyer

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Plesiadapiforms, a geographically widespread radiation of Paleogene mammals , are the only group of fossils widely regarded as probable stem primates (Simpson, 1935;Gingerich, 1976;Szalay and Delson, 1979;Szalay et al, 1987;Bloch and Boyer, 2002;Janecka et al, 2007). Though various researchers remain skeptical about plesiadapiforms as stem primates [see Godinot (2007)] and some well-sampled cladistic analyses contradict this idea (e.g., Ni et al, 2013), plesiadapiforms are universally regarded as members of Euarchonta, a group whose extant members include primates, dermopterans (Cynocephalus and Galeopterus, the "flying lemurs"), and scandentians (Tupaiidae and Ptilocercidae, the treeshrews) (Szalay and Decker, 1974;Szalay and Delson, 1979;Szalay and Dagosto, 1980;Szalay and Drawhorn, 1980;Szalay et al, 1987;Bloch and Boyer, 2002;Cartmill, 2012). At the very least, plesiadapiforms are the only euarchontans with a sampled postcranial fossil record just prior to the appearance of taxa usually assumed to be members of euprimates.…”

Section: Fossil Taxa Reviewed: Systematic Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hands of early primates

Boyer

Yapuncich

Chester

et al. 2013

American J Phys Anthropol

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Questions surrounding the origin and early evolution of primates continue to be the subject of debate. Though anatomy of the skull and inferred dietary shifts are often the focus, detailed studies of postcrania and inferred locomotor capabilities can also provide crucial data that advance understanding of transitions in early primate evolution. In particular, the hand skeleton includes characteristics thought to reflect foraging, locomotion, and posture. Here we review what is known about the early evolution of primate hands from a comparative perspective that incorporates data from the fossil record. Additionally, we provide new comparative data and documentation of skeletal morphology for Paleogene plesiadapiforms, notharctines, cercamoniines, adapines, and omomyiforms. Finally, we discuss implications of these data for understanding locomotor transitions during the origin and early evolutionary history of primates. Known plesiadapiform species cannot be differentiated from extant primates based on either intrinsic hand proportions or hand-to-body size proportions. Nonetheless, the presence of claws and a different carpometacarpal joint form in plesiadapiforms indicate different grasping mechanics. Notharctines and cercamoniines have intrinsic hand proportions with extremely elongated proximal phalanges and digit rays relative to metacarpals, resembling tarsiers and galagos. But their hand-to-body size proportions are typical of many extant primates (unlike those of tarsiers, and possibly Teilhardina, which have extremely large hands). Non-adapine adapiforms and omomyids exhibit additional carpal features suggesting more limited dorsiflexion, greater ulnar deviation, and a more habitually divergent pollex than observed plesiadapiforms. Together, features differentiating adapiforms and omomyiforms from plesiadapiforms indicate increased reliance on vertical prehensileclinging and grasp-leaping, possibly in combination with predatory behaviors in ancestral euprimates. Am J Phys Anthropol 57:33-78,

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“…These disagreements in the literature are further compounded by two classification systems, clades and grades, which are used interchangeably in the naming of genera. While supraspecific taxa may prove to be obsolete in future years (Cartmill, 2012), both clades and grades are immensely useful in describing evolutionary and adaptive histories. Hence, the present author calls for more rigorous definitions to be used in hominin systematics, possibly with two parallel classification systems, clades and grades, that remain distinct in their objectives, clades to describe the route of evolution and grades to describe the product (Wood and Lonergan, 2008), but that each can be separately used to communicate our understanding of hominin evolution and adaptation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently, Cartmill (2012) has suggested that all supraspecific taxonomy may be found entirely superfluous. Cartmill suggests that parallelisms are inevitable in closely related taxa due to the similarities in their morphology and the selective pressures that are exerted upon them.…”

Section: How Should Species Be Classified Into Higher Taxa?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Any future adaptive distinctions between clades are due entirely to subsequent anagenetic and cladogenetic evolution within the clade and due to extinctions (Figure 2). Hence, supraspecific taxa, which are often heralded for containing the suite of traits that define the adaptive shift(s) represented in the clade, are actually entirely illusory (Cartmill 2012). It is that, historically, we have only been able to observe a subsection of all diversity; that which is contained in the world's extant taxa.…”

Section: How Should Species Be Classified Into Higher Taxa?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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