Anatomy
''Palaeopropithecus'' primarily lived in the trees to stay away from predators as well as to gain valuable resources. To survive properly in the trees, ''Palaeopropithecus'' had long and powerful arms and legs, each with significantly long fingers and toes to allow them to hang upside down on branches. These were used to swing from branch to branch to travel across the jungle of Madagascar. These long arms made it much easier to grab hold of various trees and branches, making travel at the arboreal level easier. Laurie Godrey states in "The Extinct Sloth Lemurs of Madagascar", "Thus, these animals exhibit the odd behavioral combination of being both specialized leapers and adept climbers and hangers." The long arms of ''Palaeopropithecus'' had hook like extremities on their hands and feet. This benefited ''Palaeopropithecus'' by enabling them to hook their bodies onto the foliage to stabilize themselves as they traversed through the trees. ''Palaeopropithecus'' on average weighed between -. This weight is heavier than most modern lemurs and could potentially have caused the species to fall while hanging on branches, forcing the species to make sufficient use of their long arms and legs to survive.Gommery, Dominique. "New Extinct Lemur Species Discovered in Madagascar." Phys.org. CNRS, France, 26 May 2009. Retrieved 21 October 2012.Diet
The ''Palaeopropithecus'' species were probably folivorous based on dental morphology,Fleagle, J.G. 1988. Primate Adaptation and Evolution. Academic Press: New York. consuming a mixed diet of foliage and fruit to varying degrees. They supplemented their leaf-eating with substantial amounts of seed-predation, much like modern indrids. There is also no molar use wear evidence that ''Palaeopropithecus'' relied on terrestrial foods (C4 grasses, tubers, rhizomes). ''P. ingens'' faced weaning early on and lost their deciduous teeth early. After a little over a month they learned and were able to forage for solid food much earlier than other lemur species. More than likely ''P. ingens'' had to find food for themselves at an early age. The degree to how much of their diet consisted of seeds is somewhat uncertain but because of the pitting of the teeth it is clear they ate seeds. ''Palaeopropithecus ingens'' and ''P. maximus'' have similar use-wear scars. These were apparently mixed fruit and foliage consumers; neither species appears to have been a hard-object specialist. ''P. kelyus'' had smaller teeth than the other two species. Its dental characteristics could be described from the ''P. kelyus'' subfossil maxilla fragmentshowing a parastyle and a highly developed mesostyle. While other ''Palaeopropithecus'' must have fed on leaves and fruit, the differences in the teeth of ''Palaeopropithecus kelyus'' suggest that this animal could chew much more food like nuts and seeds compared with the other two known species. Evidence is accumulating that they may survive on low quality (that is highly fibrous) staple or fallback foods and a life-history "strategy" of low maternal input and slow returns in an unpredictable and periodically stressful environment. ''Palaeopropithecus'' was the most suspensory of all known strepsirhines, and so they would feed in suspensory postures. Locomotion on the ground would have been ungainly, and probably quite rare, except to creep across the ground from one feeding tree to the next when presented with gaps in the forest canopy. Their large, hook-like claws were not optimal for walking.Behavior
''Palaeopropithecus'' likely had a very active behavior based on the morphology of the limbs. It engaged in hanging upside down from all four limbs in a sloth-like posture at a high frequency, as indicated by the morphology of the lumbar vertebrae and the high degree of phalangeal curvature. It is regarded as being among the most suspensory clades of mammals ever to evolve.Extinction
When ''Palaeopropithecus'' became extinct is not exactly clear, however scientists have suggested that it could be as recent as about five hundred years ago.http://www.edgeofexistence.org Sloth lemur or tretretretre (''Palaeopropithecus ingens''), Baillie, Jonathan (Edge of Existence Team), 10/23/12, http://www.edgeofexistence.org/mammals/species_info.php?id=543 The reason behind the extinction of the several species of ''Palaeopropithecus'' has been attributed to the presence of humans to the island of Madagascar, the earliest evidence of which dates back to 2325±43 yr BP. Scientists have found fossils of ''Palaeopropithecus'' that appeared to have cut marks in them, suggesting flesh removal with a sharp object, indicating that the species was hunted by the earliest colonists to the island of Madagascar as a source for food. The first evidence of the early human butchery to ''Palaeopropithecus'' was found by Hon.Miscellaneous
There were three known species of ''Palaeopropithecus'': ''Palaeopropithecus ingens'', ''Palaeopropithecus maximus'', and ''Palaeopropithecus kelyus''. ''Palaeopropithecus ingens'' is thought to also be the mythical Malagasy creature known as the Tretretre, or the alternate name of Tratratra. According to new radiocarbon dates, ''Palaeopropithecus'' may have still been alive at 1500CE. However, Yale biologists who extracted DNA from the bones and teeth of 9 subfossil individuals from ''Palaeopropithecus'' state that all the giant lemurs analyzed died well over 1,000 years ago. Another thing they confirmed was that there is a close relationship between the sloth lemurs and currently living indrids. For example, ''Palaeopropithecus'' were born with highly developed teeth, just like indrids.References
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