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Notharctus Tenebrosus
''Notharctus tenebrosus'' was an early primate from the early Eocene, some 54–38 million years ago. Its fossil was found by Ferdinand V. Hayden in 1870 in southwestern Wyoming. When first found, ''Notharctus tenebrosus'' was thought to be a small pachyderm due to the concentration of pachyderm fossils in the area. However, after Walter W. Granger's discovery of a nearly complete skeleton, also in Wyoming, it was firmly established as a primate. ''Notharctus tenebrosus'' most resembles modern-day lemurs, although they are not directly related. ''Notharctus tenebrosus'' belonged to an extinct primate group known as Adapiformes and fossils have been found in North America. Adapiform primates were among the first primates to exhibit a set of adaptations for life in the trees, such as grasping hands, binocular vision, and flexible backs. In addition to this, small orbits in the genera indicate that they were diurnal. "Notharctus" means false bear, while "tenebrosus" means dark o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Notharctinae
Notharctinae is an extinct subfamily of primates that were common in North America during the early and middle Eocene (55-34 million years ago). The six genera that make up the group ('' Cantius'', '' Pelycodus'', '' Copelemur'', '' Hesperolemur'', '' Notharctus'', and '' Smilodectes'') contain species that are among the most primitive of the adapiform group, which is one of the most primitive groups of primates. The evolutionary history of this subfamily has been comparatively well documented and has been used to argue for evolutionary gradualism. Though it is generally accepted that adapiforms gave rise to modern day lemurs and lorises, it is not currently known which branch of Adapiformes these living species are most closely related to. Notharctines became extinct in the middle Eocene, most likely because of a combination of factors including climatic change and competition with other North American primates. Taxonomic diversity Notharctinae is one of the two subfamilies, al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adapiformes
Adapiformes is a group of early primates. Adapiforms radiated throughout much of the northern continental mass (now Europe, Asia and North America), reaching as far south as northern Africa and tropical Asia. They existed from the Eocene to the Miocene epoch. Some adapiforms resembled living lemurs. Adapiforms are known from the fossil record only, and it is unclear whether they form a monophyletic or paraphyletic group. When assumed to be a clade, they are usually grouped under the "wet-nosed" taxon Strepsirrhini, which would make them more closely related to the lemurs and less so to the "dry-nosed" Haplorhini taxon that includes monkeys and apes. In 2009, Franzen and colleagues placed the newly described genus '' Darwinius'' in the "Adapoidea group of early primates representative of early haplorhine diversification" so that, according to these authors, the adapiforms would not be within the Strepsirrhini lineage as hitherto assumed but qualify as a stem "missing link" betwee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snout
A snout is the protruding portion of an animal's face, consisting of its nose, mouth, and jaw. In many animals, the structure is called a muzzle, Rostrum (anatomy), rostrum, beak or proboscis. The wet furless surface around the nostrils of the nose of many mammals is called the rhinarium (colloquially this is the "cold wet snout" of some mammals). The rhinarium is often associated with a stronger sense of olfaction. Variation Snouts are found on many mammals in a variety of shapes. Some animals, including ursines and great cats, have box-like snouts, while others, like shrews, have pointed snouts. Pig snouts are flat and cylindrical. Primates Strepsirrhine primates have muzzles, as do baboons. Great apes have reduced muzzles, with the exception being human beings, whose face does not have protruding jaws nor a snout but merely a human nose. Dogs The muzzle begins at the Stop (dog), stop, just below the eyes, and includes the dog's nose and mouth. In the domestic dog, most of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Notharctus Tenebrosus E Plesiadapis Cooki (cropped)
''Notharctus'' is a genus of adapiform primate that lived in North America and Europe during the late to middle Eocene. The body form of ''Notharctus'' is similar to that of modern rats. Its fingers were elongated for clamping onto branches, including the development of a thumb The thumb is the first digit of the hand, next to the index finger. When a person is standing in the medical anatomical position (where the palm is facing to the front), the thumb is the outermost digit. The Medical Latin English noun for thumb .... Its spine is flexible and the animal was about in length, excluding the long tail. There were at least four different ''Notharctus'' species. Fossils from at least seven other potential species have also been discovered. References Bibliography * External links Mikko's Phylogeny Archive {{Taxonbar, from=Q2086632 Notharctinae Prehistoric primate genera Eocene primates Ypresian life Lutetian life Bartonian life Wasatchian Bridgerian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quadruped
Quadrupedalism is a form of locomotion in which animals have four legs that are used to bear weight and move around. An animal or machine that usually maintains a four-legged posture and moves using all four legs is said to be a quadruped (from Latin ''quattuor'' for "four", and ''pes'', ''pedis'' for "foot"). Quadruped animals are found among both vertebrates and invertebrates. Quadrupeds vs. tetrapods Although the words ‘quadruped’ and ‘tetrapod’ are both derived from terms meaning ‘four-footed’, they have distinct meanings. A tetrapod is any member of the taxonomic unit Tetrapoda (which is defined by descent from a specific four-limbed ancestor), whereas a quadruped actually uses four limbs for locomotion. Not all tetrapods are quadrupeds and not all quadrupedal animals are tetrapods; some arthropods are adapted for four-footed locomotion, such as the raptorial Mantodea, or mantises, and the Nymphalidae, or brush-footed butterflies—the largest butterfly f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arboreal
Arboreal locomotion is the locomotion of animals in trees. In habitats in which trees are present, animals have evolved to move in them. Some animals may scale trees only occasionally (scansorial), but others are exclusively arboreal. The habitats pose numerous mechanical challenges to animals moving through them and lead to a variety of anatomical, behavioral and ecological consequences as well as variations throughout different species. Cartmill, M. (1985). "Climbing". pp. 73–88 ''In'': Hildebrand, Milton; Bramble, Dennis M.; Liem, Karel F.; Wake, David B. (editors) (1985). ''Functional Vertebrate Morphology''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press. 544 pp. . Furthermore, many of these same principles may be applied to climbing without trees, such as on rock piles or mountains. Some animals are exclusively arboreal in habitat, such as tree snails. Biomechanics Arboreal habitats pose numerous mechanical challenges to animals moving in them, which have been solved in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Folivorous
In zoology, a folivore is a herbivore that specializes in eating leaves. Mature leaves contain a high proportion of hard-to-digest cellulose, less energy than other types of foods, and often toxic compounds.Jones, S., Martin, R., & Pilbeam, D. (1994) ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press For this reason, folivorous animals tend to have long digestive tracts and slow metabolisms. Many enlist the help of symbiotic bacteria to release the nutrients in their diet. Additionally, as has been observed in folivorous primates, they exhibit a strong preference for immature leaves which tend to be easier to masticate, are higher in energy and protein, and lower in fibre and poisons than more mature fibrous leaves. Folivory and flight It has been observed that folivory is extremely rare among flying vertebrates. Morton (1978) attributed this to the fact that leaves are heavy, slow to digest, and contain little energy relative to other foo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grooming Claw
A grooming claw (or toilet claw) is the specialized claw or nail on the foot of certain primates, used for personal grooming. All prosimians have a grooming claw, but the digit that is specialized in this manner varies. Tarsiers have a grooming claw on second and third toes. In the suborder Strepsirrhini, which includes lemurs, galagos and lorises, the grooming claw is on the second toe. Less commonly known, a grooming claw is also found on the second pedal digit of night monkeys (''Aotus''), titis (''Callicebus''), and possibly other New World monkeys. The first toe is the large one, the equivalent of a human big toe. However, in all these prosimians the foot is more or less hand-like. The first toe is opposable, like a human thumb, and the second and third toes correspond approximately to the index and middle fingers. Like a claw or a nail, the grooming claw is also made of keratin Keratin () is one of a family of structural fibrous proteins also known as ''scleroprotein ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calcaneus
In humans and many other primates, the calcaneus (; from the Latin ''calcaneus'' or ''calcaneum'', meaning heel; : calcanei or calcanea) or heel bone is a bone of the Tarsus (skeleton), tarsus of the foot which constitutes the heel. In some other animals, it is the point of the hock (anatomy), hock. Structure In humans, the calcaneus is the largest of the tarsal bones and the largest bone of the foot. Its long axis is pointed forwards and laterally. The talus bone, calcaneus, and navicular bone are considered the proximal row of tarsal bones. In the calcaneus, several important structures can be distinguished:Platzer (2004), p 216 There is a large calcaneal tuberosity located posteriorly on plantar surface with medial and lateral tubercles on its surface. Besides, there is another peroneal tubercle on its lateral surface. On its lower edge on either side are its lateral and medial processes (serving as the origins of the Abductor hallucis muscle, abductor hallucis and Abductor di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Finger
A finger is a prominent digit (anatomy), digit on the forelimbs of most tetrapod vertebrate animals, especially those with prehensile extremities (i.e. hands) such as humans and other primates. Most tetrapods have five digits (dactyly, pentadactyly),#Cha1998, Chambers 1998 p. 603#OxfIll, Oxford Illustrated pp. 311, 380 and short digits (i.e. significantly shorter than the metacarpal/metatarsals) are typically referred to as toes, while those that are notably elongated are called fingers. In humans, the fingers are flexibly joint, articulated and opposable, serving as an important organ of somatosensory, tactile sensation and fine motor skill, fine movements, which are crucial to the dexterity of the hands and the ability to grasp and object manipulation, manipulate objects. Land vertebrate fingers As terrestrial vertebrates were evolution, evolved from lobe-finned fish, their forelimbs are phylogeny, phylogenetically equivalent to the pectoral fins of fish. Within the taxon, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hallux
Toes are the digits of the foot of a tetrapod. Animal species such as cats that walk on their toes are described as being ''digitigrade''. Humans, and other animals that walk on the soles of their feet, are described as being ''plantigrade''; '' unguligrade'' animals are those that walk on hooves at the tips of their toes. Structure There are normally five toes present on each human foot. Each toe consists of three phalanx bones, the proximal, middle, and distal, with the exception of the big toe (). For a minority of people, the little toe also is missing a middle bone. The hallux only contains two phalanx bones, the proximal and distal. The joints between each phalanx are the interphalangeal joints. The proximal phalanx bone of each toe articulates with the metatarsal bone of the foot at the metatarsophalangeal joint. Each toe is surrounded by skin, and present on all five toes is a toenail. The toes are, from medial to lateral: * the first toe, also known as the h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thumb
The thumb is the first digit of the hand, next to the index finger. When a person is standing in the medical anatomical position (where the palm is facing to the front), the thumb is the outermost digit. The Medical Latin English noun for thumb is ''pollex'' (compare ''hallux'' for big toe), and the corresponding adjective for thumb is ''pollical''. Definition Thumb and fingers The English word ''finger'' has two senses, even in the context of appendages of a single typical human hand: 1) Any of the five terminal members of the hand. 2) Any of the four terminal members of the hand, other than the thumb. Linguistically, it appears that the original sense was the first of these two: (also rendered as ) was, in the inferred Proto-Indo-European language, a suffixed form of (or ), which has given rise to many Indo-European-family words (tens of them defined in English dictionaries) that involve, or stem from, concepts of fiveness. The thumb shares the following with each of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
