TY - JOUR
T1 - Early Eocene Primates from Gujarat, India
AU - Rose, Kenneth D.
AU - Rana, Rajendra S.
AU - Sahni, Ashok
AU - Kumar, Kishor
AU - Missiaen, Pieter
AU - Singh, Lachham
AU - Smith, Thierry
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Marc Godinot, Philip Gingerich, Gregg Gunnell, Chris Beard, and Richard Kay for sharing their knowledge of early euprimates and opinions about the Vastan primates, and for providing comparative casts that were essential in determining the relationships of the specimens described here. Chris Beard pointed out similarities between Marcgodinotius and sivaladapids. We are grateful to Marian Dagosto and Dan Gebo for offering critical advice concerning interpretation of postcrania. In addition, Dr. Dagosto provided the body mass estimates of Vastan primates based on calcaneal measurements, using her expanded database. We thank Gregg Gunnell for allowing us to cite the forthcoming manuscript on Eocene primates from Pakistan. Mark Teaford provided helpful advice on multiple issues. Special appreciation is extended to Valerie Burke DeLeon for running and helping to interpret the principal components analyses, preparing Figs. 20 and 21 , and providing advice on preparation of other figures. L. Gordon and R.W. Thorington, Jr. (National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution), kindly provided access to recent primates for comparison. We are grateful to Annelise Folie, François Gould, Gina McKusick, and Hukam Singh for assisting in the field work, and to personnel of the Gujarat Industrial Power Corporation Ltd. for facilitating our excavations at Vastan Mine. We also thank Julien Cillis (Brussels) for assisting with the SEM images and preparation of figures, and Jonathan Bloch and two anonymous reviewers for constructive comments on the manuscript. Field work and research were supported by the National Geographic Society (grants 6868-00, 7938-05, and 8356-07 to K.D.R. and A.S.); Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (ESS/23/Ves092/2000 to R.S.R.); the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research of India (ES grant 560, 21/EMR-II to A.S.); the Director, Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun, India (to K.K.); and the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (MO/36/011 and MO/36/020 to T.S.).
PY - 2009/4
Y1 - 2009/4
N2 - The oldest euprimates known from India come from the Early Eocene Cambay Formation at Vastan Mine in Gujarat. An Ypresian (early Cuisian) age of ∼53 Ma (based on foraminifera) indicates that these primates were roughly contemporary with, or perhaps predated, the India-Asia collision. Here we present new euprimate fossils from Vastan Mine, including teeth, jaws, and referred postcrania of the adapoids Marcgodinotius indicus and Asiadapis cambayensis. They are placed in the new subfamily Asiadapinae (family Notharctidae), which is most similar to primitive European Cercamoniinae such as Donrussellia and Protoadapis. Asiadapines were small primates in the size range of extant smaller bushbabies. Despite their generally very plesiomorphic morphology, asiadapines also share a few derived dental traits with sivaladapids, suggesting a possible relationship to these endemic Asian adapoids. In addition to the adapoids, a new species of the omomyid Vastanomys is described. Euprimate postcrania described include humeri, radii, femora, calcanei, and tali, most of which show typical notharctid features and are probably attributable to asiadapines. Anatomical features of the limb elements indicate that they represent active arboreal quadrupedal primates. At least one calcaneus is proximally shorter and distally longer than the others, resembling eosimiids in this regard, a relationship that, if confirmed, would also suggest an Asian or southeast Asian faunal connection. Isolated teeth from Vastan Mine recently attributed to a new eosimiid, Anthrasimias gujaratensis, appear to provide that confirmation. However, their attribution to Eosimiidae is equivocal. They are similar to teeth here tentatively referred to Marcgodinotius, hence A. gujaratensis may be a junior synonym of M. indicus. Corroboration of eosimiids at Vastan requires more compelling evidence. Although definitive conclusions are premature, available evidence suggests that the Vastan adapoids, at least, were derived from western European stock that reached India near the Paleocene-Eocene boundary.
AB - The oldest euprimates known from India come from the Early Eocene Cambay Formation at Vastan Mine in Gujarat. An Ypresian (early Cuisian) age of ∼53 Ma (based on foraminifera) indicates that these primates were roughly contemporary with, or perhaps predated, the India-Asia collision. Here we present new euprimate fossils from Vastan Mine, including teeth, jaws, and referred postcrania of the adapoids Marcgodinotius indicus and Asiadapis cambayensis. They are placed in the new subfamily Asiadapinae (family Notharctidae), which is most similar to primitive European Cercamoniinae such as Donrussellia and Protoadapis. Asiadapines were small primates in the size range of extant smaller bushbabies. Despite their generally very plesiomorphic morphology, asiadapines also share a few derived dental traits with sivaladapids, suggesting a possible relationship to these endemic Asian adapoids. In addition to the adapoids, a new species of the omomyid Vastanomys is described. Euprimate postcrania described include humeri, radii, femora, calcanei, and tali, most of which show typical notharctid features and are probably attributable to asiadapines. Anatomical features of the limb elements indicate that they represent active arboreal quadrupedal primates. At least one calcaneus is proximally shorter and distally longer than the others, resembling eosimiids in this regard, a relationship that, if confirmed, would also suggest an Asian or southeast Asian faunal connection. Isolated teeth from Vastan Mine recently attributed to a new eosimiid, Anthrasimias gujaratensis, appear to provide that confirmation. However, their attribution to Eosimiidae is equivocal. They are similar to teeth here tentatively referred to Marcgodinotius, hence A. gujaratensis may be a junior synonym of M. indicus. Corroboration of eosimiids at Vastan requires more compelling evidence. Although definitive conclusions are premature, available evidence suggests that the Vastan adapoids, at least, were derived from western European stock that reached India near the Paleocene-Eocene boundary.
KW - Adapoidea
KW - Eocene
KW - Eosimiidae
KW - India
KW - Notharctidae
KW - Omomyidae
KW - Postcrania
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=64749111586&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=64749111586&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jhevol.2009.01.008
DO - 10.1016/j.jhevol.2009.01.008
M3 - Article
C2 - 19303624
AN - SCOPUS:64749111586
SN - 0047-2484
VL - 56
SP - 366
EP - 404
JO - Journal of Human Evolution
JF - Journal of Human Evolution
IS - 4
ER -