Tag Archives: Primates

Purgatorius and Darwin’s finches

Oldest known euarchontan tarsals and affinities of Paleocene Purgatorius to Primates

Stephen G. B. Chester, Jonathan I. Bloch, Doug M. Boyer, and William A. Clemens

http://www.pnas.org/content/112/5/1487

Purgatorius has been considered a plausible ancestor for primates since it was discovered, but this fossil mammal has been known only from teeth and jaw fragments. We attribute to Purgatorius the first (to our knowledge) nondental remains (ankle bones) which were discovered in the same ∼65-million-year-old deposits as dentitions of this putative primate. This attribution is based mainly on size and unique anatomical specializations known among living euarchontan mammals (primates, treeshrews, colugos) and fossil plesiadapiforms. Results of phylogenetic analyses that incorporate new data from these fossils support Purgatorius as the geologically oldest known primate. These recently discovered tarsals have specialized features for mobility and provide the oldest fossil evidence that suggests arboreality played a key role in earliest primate evolution.

Evolution of Darwin’s finches and their beaks revealed by genome sequencing

Sangeet Lamichhaney, Jonas Berglund, Markus Sällman Almén, Khurram Maqbool, Manfred Grabherr, Alvaro Martinez-Barrio,    Marta Promerová, Carl-Johan Rubin, Chao Wang, Neda Zamani, B. Rosemary Grant, Peter R. Grant, Matthew T. Webster    & Leif Andersson

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature14181.html

Darwin’s finches, inhabiting the Galápagos archipelago and Cocos Island, constitute an iconic model for studies of speciation and adaptive evolution. Here we report the results of whole-genome re-sequencing of 120 individuals representing all of the Darwin’s finch species and two close relatives. Phylogenetic analysis reveals important discrepancies with the phenotype-based taxonomy. We find extensive evidence for interspecific gene flow throughout the radiation. Hybridization has given rise to species of mixed ancestry. A 240 kilobase haplotype encompassing the ALX1 gene that encodes a transcription factor affecting craniofacial development is strongly associated with beak shape diversity across Darwin’s finch species as well as within the medium ground finch (Geospiza fortis), a species that has undergone rapid evolution of beak shape in response to environmental changes. The ALX1 haplotype has contributed to diversification of beak shapes among the Darwin’s finches and, thereby, to an expanded utilization of food resources.

– Jackie

Eocene primate from Myanmar and the initial anthropoid colonization of Africa

Late Middle Eocene primate from Myanmar and the initial anthropoid colonization of Africa

Reconstructing the origin and early evolutionary history of anthropoid primates (monkeys, apes, and humans) is a current focus of paleoprimatology. Although earlier hypotheses frequently supported an African origin for anthropoids, recent discoveries of older and phylogenetically more basal fossils in China and Myanmar indicate that the group originated in Asia. Given the Oligocene-Recent history of African anthropoids, the colonization of Africa by early anthropoids hailing from Asia was a decisive event in primate evolution. However, the fossil record has so far failed to constrain the nature and timing of this pivotal event. Here we describe a fossil primate from the late middle Eocene Pondaung Formation of Myanmar, Afrasia djijidae gen. et sp. nov., that is remarkably similar to, yet dentally more primitive than, the roughly contemporaneous North African anthropoid Afrotarsius. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that Afrasia and Afrotarsius are sister taxa within a basal anthropoid clade designated as the infraorder Eosimiiformes. Current knowledge of eosimiiform relationships and their distribution through space and time suggests that members of this clade dispersed from Asia to Africa sometime during the middle Eocene, shortly before their first appearance in the African fossil record. Crown anthropoids and their nearest fossil relatives do not appear to be specially related to Afrotarsius, suggesting one or more additional episodes of dispersal from Asia to Africa. Hystricognathous rodents, anthracotheres, and possibly other Asian mammal groups seem to have colonized Africa at roughly the same time or shortly after anthropoids gained their first toehold there.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/05/29/1200644109.abstract

http://www.livescience.com/20738-primate-fossil-origins-asia.html

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Laura

Kurtén Club 2.11.

Dear all,

next tueday, Georgios Koufos will give a talk about

Fossil Primates of Greece.

Time & Loc.:
16.00, 2.11.2010, C108 Physicum

Unfortunately, Kumpula Colloquium is held simultaneously.
The ones who wished to attend the Colloquium, it is viewable at www.helsinki.fi/videot/ .

Club’s preliminary schedule:
9.11. Juha Saarinen
16.11. Jonathan Bunn
23.11.Jacqueline Moustakas
30.11. Nina Himberg
7.12. Kumpula Colloquium
14.12. Laura Säilä & Ian Corfe
XX.12. Chocolate Trilobites

Welcome,
Allu