Nature 244, 517 - 518 (24 August 1973); doi:10.1038/244517a0

First Record of the Palaeocene Primate Chiromyoides from North America

PHILIP D. GINGERICH

Peabody Museum of Natural History, and Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

PALAEOCENE fossil primates are known only from the European and North American continents. Fourteen genera and numerous species from North America have been described^1,2, and four genera (Plesiadapis, Chiromyoides, Berruvius, Saxonella) are recorded from Europe³. Only one primate genus, Plesiadapis, was previously known from the Palaeocene of both continents; the new species of Chiromyoides described below extends the range of this genus to North America. Addition of Chiromyoides brings to seven the number of mammalian genera known from the Palaeocene of both Europe and North America.

References

1.	Simons, E. L., Primate Evolution (Macmillan, New York, 1972).
2.	Gazin, C. L., Proc. biol. Soc. Wash., 81, 629 (1968).
3.	Russell, D. E., Mem. Mus. natn. Hist. Nat., C13, 80 (1964).
4.	Stehlin, H. G., Abh. Schweiz. paläont. Ges., 41, 1489 (1916).
5.	Gingerich, P. D., in Prosimian Biology (edit. by Doyle, G. A., Martin, R. D., and Walker, A.) (Duckworth, London) (in the press).
6.	McKenna, M. C., 24th Int. geol. Congress, sec. 7, 275 (1972).
7.	Martin, R. D., Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond., 264, 295 (1972).
8.	Cartmill, M., in The Functional and Evolutionary Biology of Primates (edit. by Tuttle, R.) 97, (Aldine Atherton, Chicago, 1972).
9.	Romer, A. S., Vertebrate Paleontology (University of Chicago Press, 1966).
10.	Simons, E. L., Bull. Brit. Mus. natn. Hist. Geol., 7, 1 (1962).
11.	Martin, R. D., Man, 3, 377 (1968).
12.	Bown, T. M., and Gingerich, P. D., Folia Primat. (in the press).
13.	Gingerich, P. D., Nature, 232, 566 (1971).