Plesiadapis
| Plesiadapis | ||||||||||||
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Skeleton reconstruction in the Brussels Natural History Museum. |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Paleocene | ||||||||||||
| 58 to 55 million years | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Plesiadapis | ||||||||||||
| Gervais , 1877 | ||||||||||||
Plesiadapis is agenus of mammals from the order of the Plesiadapiformes ,extinctin the Paleocene , whose members are considered to be close relatives of the primates .
Features and way of life
Species of the genus Plesiadapis were about 60-80 centimeters long and weighed an estimated two kilograms. The squirrel or lemur-like animal lived 58 to 55 million years ago in the Paleocene in the forests of North America and Europe , where it loved to hunt down insects. Compared to his contemporaries, this ancestor of the first primates, including humans, had a large brain and powerful fingers that could extend dangerous claws. The development of the earliest primates ( Plesiadapis , purgatorius , Smilodectes ) until now humans Homo sapiens took more than 70 million years and went through animals of very different shape. Purgatorius , since only teeth and jaw fragments were found of him, is far less known than the two early monkeys Plesiadapis and Smilodectes .
Systematics
- Plesiadapis walbeckensis Russell, 1964
- Plesiadapis remensis Lemoine, 1887
- Plesiadapis tricuspidens Gervais, 1877
- Plesiadapis russelli Gingerich, 1976
- Plesiadapis insignis (Piton, 1940)
- Plesiadapis praecursor Gingerich, 1975
- Plesiadapis anceps Simpson, 1936
- Plesiadapis rex (Gidley, 1923)
- Plesiadapis gingerichi Rose, 1981
- Plesiadapis churchilli Gingerich, 1975
- Plesiadapis fodinatus Jepsen, 1930
- Plesiadapis dubius (Matthew, 1915)
- Plesiadapis simonsi Gingerich, 1975
- Plesiadapis cookei Jepsen, 1930
literature
- From primeval times to human beings - the creation of our world . Lingen Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach 1995
