Fluorescence in Situ Hybridization Reveals Homologies Among Tarsier, Galago, and Human Karyotypes

Abstract

The current majority position among morphologists regards Tarsius and Anthropoidea as sister taxa. This grouping, suborder Haplorhini, is supported by shared derived characters of the orbit, retina, placenta (Luckett, 1982) and basicranium (MacPhee and Cartmill, 1986) in addition to the derived nasal morphology from which the clade takes its name. Tarsius’s highly derived body plan complicates the interpretation of tarsier-anthropoid similarities, however, leading other morphologists to reject them as nonhomologous consequences of tarsier specializations. Schwartz and Tattersall (1987) propose a tarsier-lorisiform clade in lieu of a tarsier-anthropoid one; Simons and Rasmussen (1989) regard the most salient tarsier-anthropoid correspondences in cranial anatomy as convergent.