Species in the primate fossil record

The Primate Fossil Record

The Fossil Record and Primate Phylogeny

Fossils provide the only direct evidence of the evolutionary history of primates. A method of phylogeny reconstruction is outlined which is based on an evaluation ofphenetic resemblances of fossils interpreted in their stratigraphiccontext. This stratopheneti¢ approach to phylogeny involves three successive steps: (1) organization of fossils stratigraphically, (2) phenetie linking of similar fo...

Space Matters: Estimating Species Diversity in the Fossil Record

Estimates for the number of living species on earth range from 3.5 million to over 30 million but only 1.9 million species have been classified and described. Estimating historical biodiversity from the fossil record is an even more daunting task. One tool ecologists but not paleontologists have traditionally relied on to identify patterns of existing biological diversity is a long-established ...

Fossil embryos deep in the fossil record

Embryos have been found in ‘old’ rocks on four continents, especially in Siberia, Nevada, Australia and China. They have been discovered in sedimentary rocks of even Late Neoproterozoic age, assuming the evolutionary geological column1 (figure 1). The Neoproterozoic is the period, so called, between 1 billion and 550 million years ago. This discovery was in the Doushantuo Formation, Guizhou Pro...

THE QUALITY OF THE FOSSIL RECORD: Populations, Species, and Communities1

Paleontologists have always been concerned about the documentary quality of the fossil record, and this has also become an important issue for biologists, who increasingly look to accumulations of bones, shells, and plant material as possible ways to extend the time-frame of observation on species and community behaviors. Quantitative data on the postmortem behavior of organic remains in modern...