The anthropoid status of a primate from the late middle Eocene Pondaung Formation (Central Myanmar): tarsal evidence.
Primate dental and postcranial remains from the Eocene Pondaung Formation (Myanmar) have been the subject of considerable confusion since their initial discoveries, and their anthropoid status has been widely debated. We report here a well preserved primate talus discovered in the Segyauk locality near Mogaung that displays derived anatomical features typical of haplorhines, notably anthropoids, and lacks strepsirhine synapomorphies. Linear discriminant and parsimony analyses indicate that the talus from Myanmar is more similar structurally to those of living and extinct anthropoids than to those of adapiforms, and its overall osteological characteristics further point to arboreal quadrupedalism. Regressions of talar dimensions versus body mass in living primates indicate that this foot bone might have belonged to Amphipithecus. This evidence supports hypotheses favoring anthropoid affinities for the large-bodied primates from Pondaung and runs contrary to the hypothesis that Pondaungia and Amphipithecus are strepsirhine adapiforms.
Laboratoire de Paléontologie, Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution (Unité Mixte de Recherche 5554-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), C.C. 064, Université Montpellier II, Place Eugène Bataillon, Montpellier, France. marivaux@isem.univ-montp2.fr
Laurent
L
Marivaux
Yaowalak
Y
Chaimanee
Stephane
S
Ducrocq
Bernard
B
Marandat
Jean
J
Sudre
Aung Naing
AN
Soe
Soe Thura
ST
Tun
Wanna
W
Htoon
Jean-Jacques
JJ
Jaeger
D000818:Animals; D005580:Fossils; D000882:Haplorhini; D002052:Myanmar; D010802:Phylogeny; D011323:Primates; D013639:Tarsal Bones