New Eocene primate from Myanmar shares dental characters with African Eocene crown anthropoids
- Author(s)
- Jean-Jacques Jaeger, Olivier Chavasseau, Vincent Lazzari, Aung Naing Soe, Chit Sein, Anne Le Maitre, Hla Shwe, Yaowalak Chaimanee
- Abstract
Recent discoveries of older and phylogenetically more primitive basal anthropoids in China and Myanmar, the eosimiiforms, support the hypothesis that Asia was the place of origins of anthropoids, rather than Africa. Similar taxa of eosimiiforms have been discovered in the late middle Eocene of Myanmar and North Africa, reflecting a colonization event that occurred during the middle Eocene. However, these eosimiiforms were probably not the closest ancestors of the African crown anthropoids. Here we describe a new primate from the middle Eocene of Myanmar that documents a new clade of Asian anthropoids. It possesses several dental characters found only among the African crown anthropoids and their nearest relatives, indicating that several of these characters have appeared within Asian clades before being recorded in Africa. This reinforces the hypothesis that the African colonization of anthropoids was the result of several dispersal events, and that it involved more derived taxa than eosimiiforms.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Palaeontology
- External organisation(s)
- Université de Poitiers, Mandalay University of Distance Education, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Volume
- 10
- No. of pages
- 10
- ISSN
- 2041-1723
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-11295-6
- Publication date
- 08-2019
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 105118 Palaeontology
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Physics and Astronomy, General Chemistry, General Biochemistry,Genetics and Molecular Biology
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/ccee9ccf-1e3e-4446-aced-043eccc3ab95