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Catalan anthropologists describe a primate over 20 million years old

Researchers at the Catalan Institute of Paleontology have described a new primate species that went extinct 20 million years ago. The small prosimian, similar to today’s lemur and weighing between 110 and 115 grams, was described through a study of the dental record of this genus of primitive primate

STAFF | ABRIL 5TH, 2011

The Catalan Institute of Paleontology has described a new species of primate called Anchomomys frontanyensis from more than 200 pieces of fossilized teeth recovered near the Catalan town of Sant Jaume de Frontanyà. The fossil record for this kind of small prosimian (a primitive ape group of mainly nocturnal insectivores largely found on the African continent) is the most comprehensive in the world. The Anchomomys only weighed between 110 and 115 grams and were similar to the present day lemurs, even though they belonged to a different primate group.

The site of Sant Jaume de Frontanyà dates back some 40.5 million years ago, which places this species of early primate in the Middle Eocene. The last adapiforms, the extinct primate group similar to lemurs to which the Anchomomys frontanyensis belonged, became extinct in the Late Miocene, some 20 million years ago, but their great decline occurred some 34 million years ago during the transition from the Eocene to the Oligocene.

The primate species was described through its fossilized teeth At this same site, IPC paleontologists had already found the remains of Pseudoloris pyrenaicus, a new species of primate described in a paper published in 2010 in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. This new study has been published in the Journal of Human Evolution, in a paper authored by Judit Marigó, Raef MinWin-Barakat and Salvador Moyà.

Reference article:
Marigó, J., Minwer-Barakat, R. & Moyà-Solà, S. (2011) New Anchomomys (Adapoidea, Primates) from the Robiacian (Middle Eocene) of northeastern Spain. Taxonomic and evolutionary implications. Journal of Human Evolution, 60: 665-672.

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