The oldest North American primate and mammalian biogeography during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.

ABSTRACT: Undoubted primates first appear almost synchronously in the fossil records of Asia, Europe, and North America. This temporal pattern has complicated efforts to reconstruct the early dispersal history of primates in relation to global climate change and eustatic fluctuations in sea level. Here, I describe fossils from the Tuscahoma Formation on the Gulf Coastal Plain of Mississippi documenting an anatomically primitive species of Teilhardina that is older than other North American and European primates. Consistent with its antiquity, a phylogenetic analysis of dental characters recognizes Teilhardina magnoliana, sp. nov., as the most basal member of this genus currently known from either North America or Europe. Its stratigraphic provenance demonstrates that primates originally colonized No

SUBMITTER: Beard KC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2268774 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature