Plesiopithecus
≈ 1 min read
Names in other languages
No names in other languages are held for this entry yet.
Article bodies are English and are not machine-translated. A name in another language is not a translation of the article.
Plesiopithecus is an extinct genus of early strepsirrhine primate from the late Eocene.
Plesiopithecus is an extinct genus of early strepsirrhine primate from the late Eocene. ==Anatomy== Originally described from the right mandible (lower jaw), its confusing anatomy resulted in it being classified as an ape—its name translates "near ape". Plesiopithecus teras, the only species so far identified, was discovered in 1992 by Elwyn L. Simons in Egypt at the base of the Jebel Qatrani Formation at Fayum in quarry L-41. Within two years, a more complete, crushed skull was found, demonstrating that it was a strepsirrhine primate. It is thought to be a close relative of lemuriforms (extant strepsirrhines), and a sister group to either lorisoids or all lemuriforms. Plesiopithecus was a medium-sized strepsirrhine primate, with large orbits, a high muzzle, and a skull exhibiting klinorhynchy (a marked angle between the palate and the basicranium, or the lower region of the braincase). Its large orbits indicate that it was nocturnal, and its teeth suggest that it bored holes in wood in search of soft-bodied insects, just like the aye-aye.
Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1343276070 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.