Djebelemur, a Tiny Pre-Tooth-Combed Primate from the Eocene of Tunisia: A Glimpse into the Origin of Crown Strepsirhines

PLOS ONE, December 2013

24324627

Laurent Marivaux, Anusha Ramdarshan, El Mabrouk Essid, Wissem Marzougui, Hayet Khayati Ammar, Renaud Lebrun, Bernard Marandat, Gilles Merzeraud, Rodolphe Tabuce, Monique Vianey-Liaud

Molecular clock estimates of crown strepsirhine origins generally advocate an ancient antiquity for Malagasy lemuriforms and Afro-Asian lorisiforms, near the onset of the Tertiary but most often extending back to the Late Cretaceous. Despite their inferred early origin, the subsequent evolutionary histories of both groups (except for the Malagasy aye-aye lineage) exhibit a vacuum of lineage diversification during most part of the Eocene, followed by a relative acceleration in diversification from the late Middle Eocene. This early evolutionary stasis was tentatively explained by the possibility of unrecorded lineage extinctions during the early Tertiary. However, this prevailing molecular view regarding the ancient origin and early diversification of crown strepsirhines must be viewed with skepticism due to the new but still scarce paleontological evidence gathered in recent years.