The anthropoid status of a primate from the late middle Eocene Pondaung Formation (Central Myanmar): tarsal evidence.

ABSTRACT: Primate dental and postcranial remains from the Eocene Pondaung Formation (Myanmar) have been the subject of considerable confusion since their initial discoveries, and their anthropoid status has been widely debated. We report here a well preserved primate talus discovered in the Segyauk locality near Mogaung that displays derived anatomical features typical of haplorhines, notably anthropoids, and lacks strepsirhine synapomorphies. Linear discriminant and parsimony analyses indicate that the talus from Myanmar is more similar structurally to those of living and extinct anthropoids than to those of adapiforms, and its overall osteological characteristics further point to arboreal quadrupedalism. Regressions of talar dimensions versus body mass in living primates indicate that this foot bo

SUBMITTER: Marivaux L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC263736 | biostudies-literature | 2003 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature