Novo Nelson M, Martin Gabriel M, González Ruiz Laureano R, Tejedor Marcelo F
Instituto Patagónico de Geología y Paleontología (CCT CONICET-CENPAT), Puerto Madryn, Argentina.
Centro de Investigación Esquel de Montaña y Estepa Patagónica (CIEMEP, CONICET-UNPSJB), Esquel, Chubut, Argentina.
Am J Primatol. 2025 May;87(5):e70040. doi: 10.1002/ajp.70040.
Two of the more interesting and controversial platyrrhine primate taxa from the Miocene of Patagonia are Soriacebus and Mazzonicebus. Although they are known basically from isolated teeth and partial mandibles and maxillae, their morphology is highly distinctive. Opinions about their phylogenetic relationships differ widely. We interpret these fossils as belonging to the lineage of the anatomically derived, living pitheciine seed-predators; others hold the view that they are stem platyrrhines with convergent adaptations with pitheciines (with the single exception of Proteropithecia among the Patagonian forms), somewhat distant relatives converging coincidently with pitheciines. Here we tested these hypotheses in two ways: (1) by summarizing a character analysis of taxonomically informative traits; (2) we implemented "blind" parsimony analyses using the software package TNT, including a combined matrix of both morphological and molecular data, and replication studies of other matrices. We make some criticisms on the applied methodology of Parsimony in our analysis. Soriacebus and Mazzonicebus resulted sister-taxa nested deeply within the pitheciid clade; thus, and according to our inferences, they are not stem platyrrhines. Most of the differences separating them from the younger and uniformly recognized pitheciine fossils Proteropithecia, Nuciruptor and Cebupithecia are explained as being of more primitive character states; the vast majority of resemblances and their broader functional patterns are definitively pitheciine, as typified by the living pitheciines (sakis and uakaris). We therefore found that none of the Miocene Patagonian genera treated here can be reliably interpreted as stem platyrrhines. Rather, they tend to ratify the Long Lineage Hypothesis.
来自巴塔哥尼亚中新世的两个更有趣且具争议性的阔鼻猴灵长类分类群是索里亚猴（Soriacebus）和马佐尼猴（Mazzonicebus）。尽管它们基本上仅通过孤立的牙齿以及部分下颌骨和上颌骨为人所知，但其形态却极具独特性。关于它们系统发育关系的观点差异很大。我们将这些化石解释为属于解剖学上衍生的、现存的僧面猴科食籽动物的谱系；其他人则认为它们是阔鼻猴的基干类群，与僧面猴科具有趋同适应（在巴塔哥尼亚的类群中，只有原猴属（Proteropithecia）是个例外），是一些较远的亲属与僧面猴科巧合地趋同。在这里，我们通过两种方式检验了这些假设：（1）总结对分类学信息特征的性状分析；（2）我们使用软件包TNT进行“盲法”简约分析，包括形态学和分子数据的联合矩阵，以及对其他矩阵的重复研究。我们在分析中对所应用的简约方法提出了一些批评。索里亚猴和马佐尼猴结果是嵌套在僧面猴科分支深处的姐妹分类群；因此，根据我们的推断，它们不是阔鼻猴的基干类群。将它们与较年轻且被一致认可的僧面猴科化石原猴属、核裂猴属（Nuciruptor）和塞布猴属（Cebupithecia）区分开来的大多数差异被解释为具有更原始的性状状态；绝大多数相似之处及其更广泛的功能模式明确是僧面猴科的，以现存的僧面猴科动物（伶猴和秃猴）为代表。因此，我们发现这里所处理的中新世巴塔哥尼亚属中没有一个能被可靠地解释为阔鼻猴的基干类群。相反，它们倾向于支持“长谱系假说”。
