Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Eocene primates of South America and the African origins of New World monkeys

A Corrigendum to this article was published on 29 July 2015

This article has been updated

Abstract

The platyrrhine primates, or New World monkeys, are immigrant mammals whose fossil record comes from Tertiary and Quaternary sediments of South America and the Caribbean Greater Antilles1,2. The time and place of platyrrhine origins are some of the most controversial issues in primate palaeontology, although an African Palaeogene ancestry has been presumed by most primatologists3,4. Until now, the oldest fossil records of New World monkeys have come from Salla, Bolivia5,6, and date to approximately 26 million years ago7, or the Late Oligocene epoch. Here we report the discovery of new primates from the ?Late Eocene epoch of Amazonian Peru, which extends the fossil record of primates in South America back approximately 10 million years. The new specimens are important for understanding the origin and early evolution of modern platyrrhine primates because they bear little resemblance to any extinct or living South American primate, but they do bear striking resemblances to Eocene African anthropoids, and our phylogenetic analysis suggests a relationship with African taxa. The discovery of these new primates brings the first appearance datum of caviomorph rodents and primates in South America back into close correspondence, but raises new questions about the timing and means of arrival of these two mammalian groups.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Stereo-pair scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of Perupithecus ucayaliensis, holotype.
Figure 2: SEM images of Perupithecus ucayaliensis, holotype.
Figure 3: Comparison SEM images.
Figure 4: Stereo-pair SEM image of unassigned primate right M3.

Similar content being viewed by others

Change history

  • 22 April 2015

    The Zoobank accession was amended.

References

  1. Hartwig, W. C. & Meldrum, D. J. in The Primate Fossil Record (ed. Hartwig, W. C. ) 175–188 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Tejedor, M. F. Sistemática, evolución y paleobiogeografía de los primates Platyrrhini. Rev. Mus. La Plata Sec. Zool. 20, 20–39 (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Fleagle, J. G. Primate Adaptation and Evolution 3rd edn (Academic, 2013)

    Google Scholar 

  4. de Queiroz, A. The Monkey’s Voyage (Basic Books, 2014)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Hoffstetter, R. Un primate de l’Oligocene inférieur sud-américain: Branisella boliviana gen. et sp. nov. C. R. Acad. Sci. D 69, 434–437 (1969)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Fleagle, J. G. & Tejedor, M. F. in The Primate Fossil Record (ed. Hartwig, W. C. ) 161–173 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Kay, R. F., MacFadden, B. J., Madden, R. H., Sandeman, H. & Anaya, F. Revised age of the Salla beds, Bolivia, and its bearing on the age of the Deseadan South American land mammal ‘age’. J. Vertebr. Paleontol. 18, 189–199 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Campbell, K. E., Jr ed. The Paleogene mammalian fauna of Santa Rosa, Amazonian Peru. Nat. Hist. Mus. Los Angeles County Sci. Ser. 40, i–vi, 1–163 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Campbell, K. E., Jr, Frailey, C. D. & Romero-Pittman, L. The Paleogene Santa Rosa local fauna of Amazonian Perú: geographic and geologic setting. Nat. Hist. Mus. Los Angeles County Sci. Ser. 40, 3–14 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Jaeger, J. J. et al. Late Middle Eocene epoch of Libya yields earliest known radiation of African anthropoids. Nature 467, 1095–1098 (2010)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Simons, E. L. Description of two genera and species of Late Eocene Anthropoidea from Egypt. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 86, 9956–9960 (1989)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Kay, R. F. et al. The anatomy of Dolichocebus gaimanensis, a stem platyrrhine monkey from Argentina. J. Hum. Evol. 54, 323–382 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Rosenberger, A. L., Tejedor, M. F., Cooke, S. & Pekar, S. in South American Primates: Testing New Theories in the Study of Primate Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation. Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects (eds Garber, P. A., Estrada, A., Bicca-Marques, J. C., Heymann, E. W. & Strier, K. B. ) Vol. 16, 69–113 (Springer, 2009)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Rosenberger, A. L. Platyrrhines, PAUP, parallelism, and the long lineage hypothesis: a reply to Kay et al. (2008). J. Hum. Evol. 59, 214–217 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Kay, R. F. Biogeography in deep time – what do phylogenetics, geology, and paleoclimate tell us about early platyrrhine evolution? Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. B 82, 358–374 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Seiffert, E. R. Early primate evolution in Afro-Arabia. Evol. Anthropol. 21, 239–253 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Seiffert, E. R. et al. A fossil primate of uncertain affinities from the earliest Late Eocene of Egypt. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 107, 9712–9717 (2010)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Chaimanee, Y. et al. Late Middle Eocene primate from Myanmar and the initial anthropoid colonization of Africa. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 109, 10293–10297 (2012)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Marivaux, L. et al. A morphological intermediate between eosimiiform and simiiform primates from the Late Middle Eocene of Tunisia: macroevolutionary and paleobiogeographic implication of early anthropoids. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 154, 387–401 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Houle, A. Floating islands: a mode of long-distance dispersal for small and medium-sized terrestrial vertebrates. Divers. Distrib. 4, 201–216 (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Bandoni de Oliveira, F., Molina, E. C. & Marroig, G. in South American Primates: Comparative Perspectives in the Study of Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation. Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects (eds Garber, P. A., Estrada, A., Bicca-Marques, J. C., Heymann, E. W. & Strier, K. B. ) Vol. 16, 55–68 (Springer, 2009)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Bauer, K. & Schreiber, A. Double invasion of Tertiary island South America by ancestral New World monkeys? Biol. J. Linn. Soc. 60, 1–20 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Takai, M., Anaya, F., Shigehara, N. & Setoguchi, T. New fossil materials of the earliest New World monkey, Branisella boliviana, and the problem of platyrrhine origins. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 111, 263–281 (2000)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Antoine, P. O. et al. Middle Eocene rodents from Peruvian Amazonia reveal the pattern and timing of caviomorph origins and biogeography. Proc. R. Soc. B 279, 1319–1326 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Gamble, T. et al. Coming to America: multiple origins of New World geckos. J. Evol. Biol. 24, 231–244 (2011)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Mayr, G., Alvarenga, H. & Mourer-Chauviré, C. Out of Africa: fossils shed light on the origin of the hoatzin, an iconic Neotropic bird. Naturwissenschaften 98, 961–966 (2011)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

INGEMMET, Lima, has been a partner and supporter of the field work in Amazonia led by K.E.C. and C. D. Frailey, especially H. Rivera-Mantilla and O. Palacios. M. Aldana and the late L. Romero-Pittman., both of INGEMMET, and C. D. Frailey provided assistance in the field expeditions. Funding in support of the Santa Rosa expeditions was provided by the National Geographic Society and J. G. Wigmore (1995 discovery expedition), and J. G. Wigmore, W. Rhodes, and R. Seaver (1998 collecting expedition). A. Stenger provided funding to support the picking of matrix by C. Suarez-Gomez. G.-A. Kung provided assistance in operating the scanning electron microscope at LACM, an instrument funded by National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation grant DBI-0216506; F. Tricárico assisted with scanning electron microscope operations at the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales (MACN); and M. Tomeo assisted with development of figures. We thank K. C. Beard, Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum, University of Kansas, for providing epoxy casts of Talahpithecus, A. Kramarz for access to the palaeontology collections at MACN, D. Flores and L. Lucero for access to the mammalogy collections of the MACN, and CONICET (Argentina, PIP 0361).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

All co-authors participated in the development of the manuscript. M.B., M.F.T., and K.E.C. wrote the manuscript and discussed all the different topics addressed in the paper. L.C. and N.N. performed the phylogenetic analysis. L.C. and F.J.G. performed the early analysis distinguishing the primate specimens from metatherians. K.E.C. and L.C. secured and edited the figures.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kenneth E. Campbell Jr.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Additional information

The data for Perupithecus ucayaliensis have been deposited in Zoobank under urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:A8DBB511-D556-4052-A58F-A461C87BA755.

Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Figure 1 Location of the Santa Rosa locality, adapted from ref. 9.

Extended Data Figure 2 Outline drawing of the holotype of Perupithecus, with parts labelled.

For outline drawings of African anthropoids, see refs 16, 19.

Extended Data Figure 3 Phylogenetic positions of Perupithecus and the lower molar CPI-6487 with Cantius as outgroup and using Bremer support for the clades.

It is the result of the six most parsimonious trees of 955 steps, with a consistency index of 0.274 and a retention index of 0.574.

Extended Data Figure 4 Phylogenetic positions of Perupithecus and the lower molar CPI-6487 with Cantius as outgroup, ‘Omomyidae + Tarsiidae’ of ref. 18 constrained, and using Bremer support for the clades.

It is the result of the six most parsimonious trees of 958 steps, with a consistency index of 0.273 and a retention index of 0.572.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains a Supplementary Discussion, Supplementary Data for Phylogenetic Analysis, and Supplementary References. The Supplementary Text describes the geology of the Santa Rosa locality and its age. The Supplementary Data for Phylogenetic Analysis details the methodology and taxa used in the analyses, the character list, the data matrix, and the synapomorphies. (PDF 689 kb)

PowerPoint slides

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Bond, M., Tejedor, M., Campbell, K. et al. Eocene primates of South America and the African origins of New World monkeys. Nature 520, 538–541 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14120

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14120

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing