Miocene Primates

Abstract

Primates are known to have inhabited Eurasia, Africa, North America, and South America, based on fossils from the Miocene (24-5 million years ago). Omomyoid and adapoid primates that had been a diverse component of the Eocene faunas of North America and Eurasia were restricted to a few relictual representatives by the Miocene. Strepsirhine primates, closely related to modern lorises and galagos, were living in Africa and Asia, while tarsiids were distributed across tropical Asia. New World monkeys (platyrrhines) were diversifying rapidly in South America at this time, and their Miocene fossil record documents the earliest appearance of modern platyrrhine lineages. Primitive catarrhines, apes, and Old World monkeys were restricted to Africa during the early part of the early Miocene, but by the middle and late Miocene they had also spread throughout Eurasia.