Chapter 8 Primate and Hominin Origins. Ancestor to Primates? What is ancestral to all the critters...
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Transcript of Chapter 8 Primate and Hominin Origins. Ancestor to Primates? What is ancestral to all the critters...
Ancestor to Primates?
• What is ancestral to all the critters under the Order Primates?
• Where all the humans, australopithicines, monkeys, apes, homo habilis, tarsiers, lorises, aye-ayes, Neandertals, etc. came from…
Eocene 55-35 mya
• More than 200 recognized fossil species.
Darwinius, from the Messel site in
Germany, discovered in 2009 and dates to ~47
mya.
Eocene Primates
• Foramen magnum position = whether the body is habitually horizontal (like a horse) or vertical (like a monkey).
• During the Eocene, the foramen magnum in some primate species was beginning to move from the back of the skull towards the center.
• Suggesting…Holding their bodies erect while hopping and sitting, like modern lemurs, galagos, and tarsiers.
Eocene Era primate and modern human skulls
Oligocene
• “Rafting” Africa-> South America ~34 mya early in the Oligocene
• By this early point in the Oligocene, continental drift had separated the New World from the Old World.
• New and Old World monkeys branch off here, 35 million years ago.
Oligocene Primates from Fayum
• Apidium – Primitive dental
arrangement suggests near or before evolutionary divergence of Old and New World anthropoids
– Small, squirrel-like fruit and seed eating, adept at leaping and springing
Walking with the Beasts
(BBC) “Whale Killer”
EgyptEgypt’’s Fayums Fayum
• Today, itToday, it’’s a ~550 s a ~550 square mile lush square mile lush ““oasioasiss”” basin in the desert basin in the desert south of Cairosouth of Cairo
• During the Eocene and During the Eocene and Oligocene, the Faiyum Oligocene, the Faiyum was forrestedwas forrested
• At the beginning of At the beginning of the Miocene, the the Miocene, the Faiyum had become a Faiyum had become a dry hollowdry hollow
Oligocene Primates from Fayum cont.
• Aegyptopithecus (genus)– 35-33 mya– Largest of Fayum
anthropoids, roughly the size of a modern howler monkey (13-18 lbs)
– Short-limbed, slow-moving
Miocene Hominoid Fossils1. These hominoids are more closely related
to the ape-human lineage than Old World monkeys.
2. Mostly large-bodied hominoids, more akin to the lineages of orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans.
3. Most of the Miocene forms discovered are so derived that they are probably not ancestral to any living form.
Miocene Fossil Hominoids
African forms (23–14 mya) – Especially from western Kenya, these
hominoids are, in many ways, primitive.
– Proconsul
Miocene Fossil Hominoids
European forms (16–11 mya) – From scattered localities in France, Spain,
Italy, Greece, Austria, Germany, and Hungary, most are quite derived.
– Dryopithecus and Ouranopithecus
Miocene Fossil Hominoids
Asian forms (16–7 mya)– The largest and most varied group
from Turkey through India/Pakistan and east to southern China, most are highly derived.
– Sivapithecus