New Eocene primate from Myanmar shares dental characters with African Eocene crown anthropoids

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 10; no. 1; pp. 3531 - 10
• Main Authors: Jaeger, Jean-Jacques, Chavasseau, Olivier, Lazzari, Vincent, Naing Soe, Aung, Sein, Chit, Le Maître, Anne, Shwe, Hla, Chaimanee, Yaowalak
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 06-08-2019; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/158/852; 631/181/19/2471; 631/181/2480; 631/181/414; Africa; Animals; Colonization; Dispersal; Earth Sciences; Education; Eocene; Fossils; Fossils - anatomy & histology; Haplorhini - anatomy & histology; Humanities and Social Sciences; Hypotheses; Mandible - anatomy & histology; Maxilla - anatomy & histology; multidisciplinary; Museums; Myanmar; Orbits; Paleontology; Phylogeny; Phylogeography; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Sciences of the Universe; Tooth - anatomy & histology; Myanmar; Africa; Myanmar (Burma)
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11295-6

Recent discoveries of older and phylogenetically more primitive basal anthropoids in China and Myanmar, the eosimiiforms, support the hypothesis that Asia was the place of origins of anthropoids, rather than Africa. Similar taxa of eosimiiforms have been discovered in the late middle Eocene of Myanmar and North Africa, reflecting a colonization event that occurred during the middle Eocene. However, these eosimiiforms were probably not the closest ancestors of the African crown anthropoids. Here we describe a new primate from the middle Eocene of Myanmar that documents a new clade of Asian anthropoids. It possesses several dental characters found only among the African crown anthropoids and their nearest relatives, indicating that several of these characters have appeared within Asian clades before being recorded in Africa. This reinforces the hypothesis that the African colonization of anthropoids was the result of several dispersal events, and that it involved more derived taxa than eosimiiforms.
Recent fossil findings have suggested that anthropoid primates originated in Asia before dispersing into Africa. Here, Jaeger and colleagues describe a new fossil Asian primate,
Aseanpithecus myanmarensis
, that they interpret as a closer relative of African crown anthropoids.