Kay R F, Ross C, Williams B A
Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy, Box 3170, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA.
Science. 1997 Feb 7;275(5301):797-804. doi: 10.1126/science.275.5301.797.
Recent fossil discoveries have greatly increased our knowledge of the morphology and diversity of early Anthropoidea, the suborder to which humans belong. Phylogenetic analysis of Recent and fossil taxa supports the hypotheses that a haplorhine-strepsirrhine dichotomy existed at least at the time of the earliest record of fossil primates (earliest Eocene) and that eosimiids (middle Eocene, China) are primitive anthropoids. Functional analysis suggests that stem haplorhines were small, nocturnal, arboreal, visually oriented insectivore-frugivores with a scurrying-leaping locomotion. A change from nocturnality to diurnality was the fundamental adaptive shift that occurred at the base of the tarsier-eosimiid-anthropoid clade. Stem anthropoids remained small diurnal arborealists but adopted locomotor patterns with more arboreal quadrupedalism and less leaping. A shift to a more herbivorous diet occurred in several anthropoid lineages.
最近的化石发现极大地增加了我们对早期灵长目动物（人类所属的亚目）形态学和多样性的了解。对现存和化石类群的系统发育分析支持了以下假说：至少在最早的灵长类化石记录（始新世早期）出现时，简鼻亚目-原猴亚目二分法就已存在，并且始新世中期中国的曙猿是原始的类人猿。功能分析表明，早期简鼻亚目动物体型小，夜行性，树栖，以视觉为导向，是食虫-食果动物，具有快速跳跃的运动方式。从夜行性到昼行性的转变是跗猴-曙猿-类人猿进化枝基部发生的根本性适应性转变。早期类人猿仍然是小型昼行性树栖动物，但采用了更多树栖四足行走和更少跳跃的运动模式。在几个类人猿谱系中发生了向更食草性饮食的转变。
