Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origin, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 142 Xi Zhi Men Wai Street, Beijing 100044, China.
Nature. 2013 Jun 6;498(7452):60-4. doi: 10.1038/nature12200.
Reconstructing the earliest phases of primate evolution has been impeded by gaps in the fossil record, so that disagreements persist regarding the palaeobiology and phylogenetic relationships of the earliest primates. Here we report the discovery of a nearly complete and partly articulated skeleton of a primitive haplorhine primate from the early Eocene of China, about 55 million years ago, the oldest fossil primate of this quality ever recovered. Coupled with detailed morphological examination using propagation phase contrast X-ray synchrotron microtomography, our phylogenetic analysis based on total available evidence indicates that this fossil is the most basal known member of the tarsiiform clade. In addition to providing further support for an early dichotomy between the strepsirrhine and haplorhine clades, this new primate further constrains the age of divergence between tarsiiforms and anthropoids. It also strengthens the hypothesis that the earliest primates were probably diurnal, arboreal and primarily insectivorous mammals the size of modern pygmy mouse lemurs.
重建灵长类动物进化的最早阶段受到化石记录中空白的阻碍，因此对于最早的灵长类动物的古生物学和系统发育关系仍然存在争议。在这里，我们报告了在中国早始新世发现的一种近乎完整的、部分关节的原始简鼻猴类灵长类动物的骨骼化石，其历史可追溯至约 5500 万年前，这是迄今发现的最古老的高质量灵长类化石。结合使用传播相位对比同步辐射微断层扫描技术进行的详细形态学检查，我们基于现有全部证据进行的系统发育分析表明，该化石是已知的跗猴类分支中最原始的成员。除了为原始的跗猴类和简鼻猴类之间的早期二分法提供进一步支持外，这种新的灵长类动物进一步限制了跗猴类和人猿类之间的分化时间。它还加强了这样一种假设，即最早的灵长类动物可能是昼行性、树栖性的，以昆虫为主要食物来源，体型与现代侏鼠狐猴相当。
