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

The arboreal hypothesis proposes that defining primate characteristics were adaptations to life in the trees, such as:

Two genera of propliopithecids include:

Monkeys underwent massive__________in the Pliocene and Pleistocene.

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

The northern African fossil primate called Biretia may be an early anthropoid, based on the morphology of its:

Like that of Dryopithecus, a modern gorilla mandible has:

Which Eocene organisms had clear primate characteristics like a postorbital bar, opposable thumbs, nails, and a large brain?

Name and briefly describe the three hypotheses of primate origins.

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:

If you are examining the fossil remains of the genus Dryopithecus, they are most likely from where?

Paleocene organisms that may have been the first primates were:

Basal anthropoids are:

A species that is adapted to a wide range of environments, climates, and diets is:

Apes first appear in Europe and Asia from about:

The space between the canine and the first premolar in the lower jaw of some primates is a(n):

During the Miocene epoch of the Cenozoic era, there was an adaptive radiation of which kind of primate?

Why is the Fayum depression in Egypt such an important site for understanding the origin and diversification of anthropoid primates?

The evolution of apes began in Africa and continued into:

Discuss the selective pressures operating in the late Miocene, Pliocene, and Pleistocene that favored an adaptive radiation of monkeys and contributed to decreased diversity among apes.

The most likely contender for the common ancestor of all later catarrhines is: