title: Oligocene primates from China reveal divergence between African and Asian primate evolution.
abstract: Profound environmental and faunal changes are associated with climatic deterioration during the Eocene-Oligocene transition (EOT) roughly 34 million years ago. Reconstructing how Asian primates responded to the EOT has been hindered by a sparse record of Oligocene primates on that continent. Here, we report the discovery of a diverse primate fauna from the early Oligocene of southern China. In marked contrast to Afro-Arabian Oligocene primate faunas, this Asian fauna is dominated by strepsirhines. There appears to be a strong break between Paleogene and Neogene Asian anthropoid assemblages. Asian and Afro-Arabian primate faunas responded differently to EOT climatic deterioration, indicating that the EOT functioned as a critical evolutionary filter constraining the subsequent course of primate evolution across the Old World.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, 142 Xi Zhi Men Wai Street, Beijing, 100044, China. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China. nixijun@ivpp.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Xijun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ni
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, 142 Xi Zhi Men Wai Street, Beijing, 100044, China. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China.
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, 142 Xi Zhi Men Wai Street, Beijing, 100044, China.
authors.forename: Lüzhou
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Biodiversity Institute, University of Kansas, 1345 Jayhawk Boulevard, Lawrence, KS 66045-7561, USA. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, 1345 Jayhawk Boulevard, Lawrence, KS 66045-7561, USA.
authors.forename: K Christopher
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Beard
mesh_terms: D000349:Africa; D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002681:China; D057231:Climate Change / Q000266:history*; D005580:Fossils; D049690:History, Ancient; D010802:Phylogeny; D011323:Primates / Q000145:classification*