Exam 9: Primate Origins and Evolution: The First 50 Million Years

Which of the following is NOT true of the fossil ape Oreopithecus?

The very large baboonlike monkey (up to 80 kg or 176 lbs)that lived during the African Plio-Pleistocene was:

Based on genetic analysis of living primates calibrated by the fossil record,it is estimated that apes and Old World monkeys diverged into separate lineages around:

In which of the following extinct primates would you expect to find a 2/1/2/3 dental formula?

The first true primates (euprimates)appear in the fossil record about 56 mya.

The shift from the Miocene,which had greater diversity of ape species and fewer monkey species,to a living assemblage with greater diversity of monkey species and fewer ape species may be the result of:

Given the proliferation of apes during the Miocene,how do scientists explain the comparative rarity of living ape species at present?

An excavation of the Fayum Depression,Egypt would likely produce layers including which of the following (from oldest to most recent)?

Based on their morphology,omomyids are probably closely related to tarsiers.

All known fossil and living catarrhines have a 2/1/3/3 dental formula.

High,shearing crests on the molar teeth of a fossil primate suggests that it probably ate mostly:

The group of archaic mammals that lived during the Paleocene epoch and are likely very closely related to the earliest primates are:

Sivapithecus is widely recognized as an ancestral member of which ape lineage?

Which Eocene primate from China has recently been proposed as an extremely primitive,and tiny,anthropoid?

Approximately when did the African tectonic plate contact the Eurasian plate,allowing early African apes to migrate throughout the Old World?

Which of the following is NOT an early anthropoid family from the Fayum?

The calcaneus (heel bone)of Eosimias suggests that it may be a very primitive:

Both Colobines and Cercopithecines appear in the late Miocene fossil record,representing the two subfamilies of living:

Discuss the reasons why Paleocene-aged plesiadapiforms should or should not be included in the order Primates.

The plesiadapiform genus that had an opposable big toe with a nail at the end and therefore may be ancestral to euprimates is: