Early Anthropoid Evolution in South America

南美洲的早期类人猿进化

• 批准号: 9012154
• 负责人: John Fleagle
• 金额: $ 16.43万
• 依托单位: SUNY at Stony Brook
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1990
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1990-08-15 至 1995-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9012154&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Early; Anthropoid; Evolution; South; America

Anthropologists tend to overlook the New World monkeys because they are not on the main line of relationship to humans. Nevertheless, they comprise an exciting side branch which provides anthropologists with examples parallel to changes which have taken place in the catarrhine fossil record. The history of New World monkeys is still poorly known, compared with that of other major radiations of higher primates in the eastern hemisphere, and phylogenetic relationships among the relatively distinct groups of platyrrhine fossils are largely unresolved. Until very recently, the entire fossil record for platyrrhines consisted of remains of fewer than thirty individuals. During the past four years, paleontological research in Colombia and Argentina has yielded an abundance of new fossils that may be very important in sorting out these relationships. Further systematic and functional studies of new Argentine fossils will help clarify relationships among modern platyrrhines, and provide additional documentation about their adaptive diversity. The fossils from Argentina have come from two roughly contemporaneous formations, the Santa Cruz and the Pinturas, yet the two formations have different species of monkeys. This project will investigate the extent to which these morphological differences are the result of differences in time, environment, and/or geographical position of the two formations, and the PI will reconstruct the paleoenvironments of these formations. The project will contribute to our understanding of the phylogeny and diversification of New World primates, and permit broader comparisons between those in South America and those on other continents.

人类学家往往忽视新世界猴，因为它们不属于与人类关系的主线。 尽管如此，它们还是一个令人兴奋的分支，为人类学家提供了与卡他碱化石记录中发生的变化类似的例子。 与东半球高等灵长类动物的其他主要辐射源相比，新世界猴的历史仍然知之甚少，而且相对不同的阔鼻化石群体之间的系统发育关系在很大程度上尚未解决。 直到最近，整个鸭嘴兽化石记录还包括不到三十具个体的遗骸。 在过去的四年里，哥伦比亚和阿根廷的古生物学研究产生了大量新化石，这些化石对于理清这些关系可能非常重要。 对新阿根廷化石的进一步系统和功能研究将有助于阐明现代阔鼻科动物之间的关系，并提供有关其适应性多样性的更多文献。 阿根廷的化石来自两个大致同时代的地层：圣克鲁斯地层和平图拉斯地层，但这两个地层的猴子种类不同。 该项目将调查这些形态差异在多大程度上是由两个地层的时间、环境和/或地理位置差异造成的，并且 PI 将重建这些地层的古环境。 该项目将有助于我们了解新世界灵长类动物的系统发育和多样化，并允许对南美洲和其他大陆的灵长类动物进行更广泛的比较。