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Other similar basal primates were widespread in Eurasia and Africa during the tropical conditions of the Paleocene and Eocene. Purgatorius is the genus of the four extinct species believed to be the earliest example of a primate or a proto-primate, a primatomorph precursor to the Plesiadapiformes, dating to as old as 66 million years ago.
The encephalization quotient of some cetaceans is therefore higher than that of most primates, including the nearest relatives of humans, such as Australopithecus. [8] This list follows partly from Walter Carl Hartwig's 2002 book The Fossil Primate Record [9] and John G. Fleagle's 2013 book Primate Adaptation and Evolution (3rd edition). [10]
Primates range in size from the 30-gram (1 oz) pygmy mouse lemur to the 200-kilogram (440 lb) mountain gorilla. According to fossil evidence, the primitive ancestors of primates may have existed in the late Cretaceous period around 65 mya (million years ago), and the oldest known primate is the Late Paleocene Plesiadapis , c. 55–58 mya.
Plesiadapis is one of the oldest known primate-like mammal genera which existed about 58–55 million years ago in North America and Europe. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Plesiadapis means "near-Adapis", which is a reference to the adapiform primate of the Eocene period , Adapis .
The phylogenetic split of Hominidae into the subfamilies Homininae and Ponginae is dated to the middle Miocene, roughly 18 to 14 million years ago.This split is also referenced as the "orangutan–human last common ancestor" by Jeffrey H. Schwartz, professor of anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Arts and Sciences, and John Grehan, director of science at the Buffalo Museum.
A 2014 whole-genome molecular dating analysis indicated that the gibbon lineage diverged from that of great apes (Hominidae) around 17 million years ago (16.8 ± 0.9 Mya), based on certain assumptions about the generation time and mutation rate.
The chimpanzee–human last common ancestor (CHLCA) is the last common ancestor shared by the extant Homo (human) and Pan (chimpanzee and bonobo) genera of Hominini.Estimates of the divergence date vary widely from thirteen to five million years ago.
[1] Primates first evolved sometime between the Middle Cretaceous and the early Paleocene periods on either the supercontinent of Laurasia or in Africa. [2] According to molecular clock studies, the last common ancestor of all primates dates to around 79.6 mya, [3] although the earliest known fossil primates are only 54–55 million years old. [4]