Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Lemurs are primates belonging to the suborder Strepsirrhini. Like other strepsirrhine primates, such as lorises, pottos, and galagos, they share ancestral traits with early primates. In this regard, lemurs are popularly confused with ancestral primates; however, lemurs did not give rise to monkeys and apes, but evolved independently on ...
Archaeoindris fontoynontii is an extinct giant lemur and the largest primate known to have evolved on Madagascar, comparable in size to a male gorilla.It belonged to a family of extinct lemurs known as "sloth lemurs" (Palaeopropithecidae) and, because of its extremely large size, it has been compared to the ground sloths that once roamed North and South America.
Indriids, sportive lemurs, the aye-aye, and the extinct sloth lemurs, monkey lemurs, and koala lemurs have reduced dentitions, having lost incisors, canines, or premolars. [73] The ancestral deciduous dentition is 2.1.3 2.1.3, but young indriids, aye-ayes, koala lemurs, sloth lemurs, and probably monkey lemurs have fewer deciduous teeth. [56] [74]
Weighing 58 to 67 grams (2.0 to 2.4 oz), it is the largest mouse lemur, yet smaller than the world's smallest monkey, the pygmy marmoset, which ranges between 85 and 140 g (3.0 and 4.9 oz). Its genus , Microcebus , includes the smallest primates in the world.
As the name "monkey lemur" suggests, Archaeolemur has often been compared to the Old World monkeys due to convergences in morphological and locomotory features, such as limb proportions. [5] While there are certainly similarities between the two, the convergences are sometimes overstated.
For example, ape has been used either as an alternative for monkey or for any tailless, relatively human-like primate. [5] [6] Sir Wilfrid Le Gros Clark was one of the primatologists who developed the idea of trends in primate evolution and the methodology of arranging the living members of an order into an "ascending series" leading to humans. [7]
The most striking feature of evolution of the pelvis in primates is the widening and the shortening of the blade called the ilium. Because of the stresses involved in bipedal locomotion, the muscles of the thigh move the thigh forward and backward, providing the power for bi-pedal and quadrupedal locomotion.
In isolation, the lemurs diversified and filled the niches often filled by monkeys and apes today. [14] In Africa, the lorises and galagos diverged during the Eocene, approximately 40 mya. [11] Unlike the lemurs in Madagascar, they have had to compete with monkeys and apes, as well as other mammals. [15]