''Bownomomys'' was an early

marmoset The marmosets (), also known as zaris or sagoin, are twenty-two New World monkey species of the genera '' Callithrix'', '' Cebuella'', '' Callibella'', and ''Mico''. All four genera are part of the biological family Callitrichidae. The term ...

-like

primate Primates is an order (biology), order of mammals, which is further divided into the Strepsirrhini, strepsirrhines, which include lemurs, galagos, and Lorisidae, lorisids; and the Haplorhini, haplorhines, which include Tarsiiformes, tarsiers a ...

that lived in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

during the Early

Eocene The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes ...

epoch, about 56–50 million years ago.

Taxonomy

''Teilhardina americana'' and ''T. crassidens'' were originally named as species of ''

Teilhardina ''Teilhardina'' (, ) is an extinct marmoset-like omomyid primate that lived in Europe, North America and Asia during the Early Eocene epoch, about 56-47 million years ago. The paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson named it after the French pale ...

'', usually considered a member of Omomyidae. However,

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

analysis by Ni et al. (2004) recovered ''Teilhardina'' as

polyphyletic A polyphyletic group is an assemblage that includes organisms with mixed evolutionary origin but does not include their most recent common ancestor. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as Homoplasy, homoplasies ...

, with ''Teilhardina belgica'' and ''T. asiatica'' nested as the basalmost

haplorrhine Haplorhini (), the haplorhines (Greek for "simple-nosed") or the "dry-nosed" primates is a suborder of primates containing the tarsiers and the simians (Simiiformes or anthropoids), as sister of the Strepsirrhini ("moist-nosed"). The name is som ...

s, and ''T. americana'' and ''T. crassidens'' being recovered as anaptomorphine

omomyid Omomyidae is a group of early primates that radiated during the Eocene epoch between about (mya). Fossil omomyids are found in North America, Europe & Asia, making it one of two groups of Eocene primates with a geographic distribution spanning ...

s (and thus more closely related to the

tarsier Tarsiers ( ) are haplorhine primates of the family Tarsiidae, which is the lone extant family within the infraorder Tarsiiformes. Although the group was prehistorically more globally widespread, all of the existing species are restricted to M ...

s than to

simians The simians, anthropoids, or higher primates are an infraorder (Simiiformes ) of primates containing all animals traditionally called monkeys and apes. More precisely, they consist of the parvorders New World monkey, Platyrrhini (New World mon ...

). ''Teilhardina crassidens'' was later referred to the genus '' Baataromomys'' by Ni et al. (2007). A paper by Morse et al. built upon the cladistic results of Ni et al. (2004) by recognizing ''T. americana'' and ''T. crassidens'' as belonging to a new genus, which they named ''Bownomomys''.Paul E. Morse; Stephen G.B. Chester; Doug M. Boyer; Thierry Smith; Richard Smith; Paul Gigase; Jonathan I. Bloch (2018). "New fossils, systematics, and biogeography of the oldest known crown primate Teilhardina from the earliest Eocene of Asia, Europe, and North America". ''Journal of Human Evolution''. in press. .

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q60791929 Prehistoric primate genera Eocene primates Cenozoic mammals of North America Fossil taxa described in 2018 Omomyidae