Jamaican monkey

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Jamaican monkey
Systematics
Partial order : Monkey (anthropoidea)
without rank: New World Monkey (Platyrrhini)
Family : Sakia monkeys (Pitheciidae)
Subfamily : Spring monkey (Callicebinae)
Genre : Xenothrix
Type : Jamaican monkey
Scientific name of the  genus
Xenothrix
Williams & Koopman , 1952
Scientific name of the  species
Xenothrix mcgregori
Williams & Koopman , 1952

The Jamaican monkey ( Xenothrix mcgregori ) is an extinct primate species from the suborder of the New World monkeys . The species lived on the island of Jamaica and may not have become extinct until the 18th century.

Until recently, only parts of the lower jaw and a few other skeletal parts of this species were known, which were found in a cave in 1920. The parts were discovered in the waste of a prehistoric kitchen and dated to an age of around 200 BC. More recently, more skull parts have been found in southern Jamaica.

The Jamaican monkey is likely to have been a lazy primate that moved slowly on all fours, and was more like the night monkeys ( Aotus ) or the pottos ( Perodicticus ) than its closest relatives, the jumper monkeys (Callicebinae). The cause and timing of the extinction are unknown, reports from early European settlers in Jamaica suggest the possibility that the species survived into the 18th century.

The classification of this primate in the systematics of the living New World monkeys is difficult. Since there are no primates on the Caribbean islands , the find has given rise to numerous speculations about extinct animals on these islands. Two other recently discovered extinct species, the Kuba monkey ( Paralouatta varonai ) and the Hispaniola monkey ( Antillothrix bernensis ) prove that there was once a primate fauna in the Greater Antilles .

The Lucifer spring monkey and its relatives are the closest relatives of the Jamaican monkey

Some researchers place the Jamaican monkey close to the marmosets or night monkeys . By the recent discoveries but the thesis is compounded him and the two extinct species mentioned above to a taxon named Antilles Monkey ( Xenotrichini summarize) whose closest living relatives, the titi monkeys ( Callicebus are). A DNA analysis published in November 2018 showed that the Jamaican monkey is the sister group of the genus Cheracebus , which occurs in northwestern South America . Xenothrix and Cheracebus separated evolutionarily about 11 million years ago. The ancestors of the Jamaican monkey probably came to the coast of Jamaica at this time, floating on tree trunks. The other endemic monkey species formerly found in the Caribbean separated from their South or Central American ancestors 17.5 to 18.5 million years ago.

literature

  • Ronald M. Nowak: Walker's Mammals of the World. 6th edition. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD 1999, ISBN 0-8018-5789-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Roseina Woods, Samuel T. Turvey, Selina Brace, Ross DE MacPhee, Ian Barnes. Ancient DNA of the extinct Jamaican monkey Xenothrix reveals extreme insular change within a morphologically conservative radiation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2018; 201808603 DOI: 10.1073 / pnas.1808603115

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