Adapiformes is a group of early
primate
Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians (monkeys and apes, the latter including huma ...
s. Adapiforms radiated throughout much of the northern continental mass (now
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
,
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
and
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
), reaching as far south as northern
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
and tropical Asia. They existed from the
Eocene
The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene' ...
to the
Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...
epoch. Some adapiforms resembled living
lemur
Lemurs ( ) (from Latin ''lemures'' – ghosts or spirits) are Strepsirrhini, wet-nosed primates of the Superfamily (biology), superfamily Lemuroidea (), divided into 8 Family (biology), families and consisting of 15 genera and around 100 exist ...
s.
Adapiforms are known from the fossil record only, and it is unclear whether they form a
monophyletic
In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gro ...
or
paraphyletic
In taxonomy (general), taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's most recent common ancestor, last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few Monophyly, monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be pa ...
group. When assumed to be a
clade
A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...
, they are usually grouped under the "wet-nosed" taxon
Strepsirrhini
Strepsirrhini or Strepsirhini (; ) is a Order (biology), suborder of primates that includes the Lemuriformes, lemuriform primates, which consist of the lemurs of Fauna of Madagascar, Madagascar, galagos ("bushbabies") and pottos from Fauna of A ...
, which would make them more closely related to the lemurs and less so to the "dry-nosed"
Haplorhini
Haplorhini (), the haplorhines (Greek for "simple-nosed") or the "dry-nosed" primates, is a suborder of primates containing the tarsiers and the simians (Simiiformes or anthropoids), as sister of the Strepsirrhini ("moist-nosed"). The name is some ...
taxon that includes
monkey
Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as the simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes, which constitutes an incomple ...
s and
ape
Apes (collectively Hominoidea ) are a clade of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (though they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and as well as Europe in prehistory), which together with its siste ...
s.
[Callum Ross, Richard F. Kay, ''Anthropoid origins: new visions'', Springer, 2004, , p. 100]
In 2009, Franzen and colleagues placed the newly described genus ''
Darwinius
''Darwinius'' is a genus within the infraorder Adapiformes, a group of basal strepsirrhine primates from the middle Eocene epoch. Its only known species, ''Darwinius masillae'', lived approximately 47 million years ago (Lutetian stage) based on ...
'' in the "Adapoidea group of early primates representative of early haplorhine diversification" so that, according to these authors, the adapiforms would not be within the Strepsirrhini lineage as hitherto assumed but qualify as a stem "missing link" between Strepsirrhini and Haplorrhini.
However, subsequent analysis on the ''Darwinius'' fossil by Erik Seiffert and colleagues rejects this "missing link" idea, classifying ''Darwinius'' and other adapiforms within the Strepsirrhini.
Boyer et al. found that the crown Strepsirrhini likely emerged deep in the Adapiformes tree, possibly as sister of a group which include e.g. ''
Aframonius
''Aframonius'' is a genus of adapiform primate that lived in Africa during the late Eocene or early Oligocene. Fossils of the genus were found in the Jebel Qatrani Formation
The Jebel Qatrani Formation (also Gebel Qatrani) is a palaeontologi ...
'' and
Notharctidae
Notharctidae is an extinct family of adapiform primates found primarily in North America and Europe.
Classification
*Family Notharctidae
**Subfamily Asiadapinae
**Subfamily Cercamoniinae
**Subfamily Notharctinae
Notharctinae is an extinc ...
. The Adapiformes are thus found not to be literally extinct (in the sense of having no living descendants), and becomes a junior synonym to the Strepsirrhini. Below is a simplified cladogram.
A 2018 study puts ''Donrussellia'' as sister to crown primates.
Classification
Adapiforms belong to the infraorder Adapiformes, which contains a single superfamily, Adapoidea. The group also is sometimes treated as a superfamily (Adapoidea) alongside the other living
strepsirrhine
Strepsirrhini or Strepsirhini (; ) is a suborder of primates that includes the lemuriform primates, which consist of the lemurs of Madagascar, galagos ("bushbabies") and pottos from Africa, and the lorises from India and southeast Asia. Collec ...
superfamilies, Lemuroidea (lemurs) and
Lorisoidea
Lorisoidea is a superfamily of nocturnal primates found throughout Africa and Asia. Members include the galagos and the lorisids. As strepsirrhines, lorisoids are related to the lemurs of Madagascar and are sometimes included in the infraorder Le ...
(
loris
Loris is the common name for the strepsirrhine mammals of the subfamily Lorinae (sometimes spelled Lorisinae) in the family Lorisidae. ''Loris'' is one genus in this subfamily and includes the slender lorises, ''Nycticebus'' is the genus contain ...
es and
galago
Galagos , also known as bush babies, or ''nagapies'' (meaning "night monkeys" in Afrikaans), are small nocturnal primates native to continental, sub-Sahara Africa, and make up the family Galagidae (also sometimes called Galagonidae). They ar ...
s).
*Infraorder Adapiformes
**Superfamily Adapoidea
***Family
Notharctidae
Notharctidae is an extinct family of adapiform primates found primarily in North America and Europe.
Classification
*Family Notharctidae
**Subfamily Asiadapinae
**Subfamily Cercamoniinae
**Subfamily Notharctinae
Notharctinae is an extinc ...
***Family
Sivaladapidae
***Family
Adapidae
Adapidae is a family of extinct primates that primarily radiated during the Eocene epoch between about 55 and 34 million years ago.
Adapid systematics and evolutionary relationships are controversial, but there is fairly good evidence from the ...
*Infraorder ''incertae sedis''
**Superfamily ''incertae sedis''
***Family
Azibiidae
Azibiidae is an extinct family of fossil primate from the late early or early middle Eocene from the Glib Zegdou Formation in the Gour Lazib area of Algeria. They are thought to be related to the living toothcombed primates, the lemurs and lor ...
***Family
Djebelemuridae
Djebelemuridae is an extinct family of early strepsirrhine primates from Africa. It consists of five genera. The organisms in this family were exceptionally small, and were insectivores. This family dates to the early to late Eocene. Although the ...
Rose (1995) suggests that early adapiformes and
omoyiformes shared a common ancestor dating to the
Thanetian
The Thanetian is, in the International Commission on Stratigraphy, ICS Geologic timescale, the latest age (geology), age or uppermost stage (stratigraphy), stratigraphic stage of the Paleocene epoch (geology), Epoch or series (stratigraphy), Serie ...
age
Age or AGE may refer to:
Time and its effects
* Age, the amount of time someone or something has been alive or has existed
** East Asian age reckoning, an Asian system of marking age starting at 1
* Ageing or aging, the process of becoming older ...
.
References
Sources
*
*
External links
Mikko's Phylogeny Archive
{{Taxonbar, from=Q135042
Prehistoric strepsirrhines
Eocene first appearances
Miocene extinctions
Mammal infraorders
Fossil taxa described in 1977
Taxa named by Robert Hoffstetter
Paraphyletic groups