Middle Eocene primate tarsals from China: Implications for haplorhine evolution

We describe tarsal remains of primates recovered from the Middle Eocene (si milar to 45 mya) Shanghuang fissures in southern Jiangsu Province, China. T hese tarsals document the existence of four higher-level taxa of haplorhine primates and at least two adapid species. The meager and poorly preserved adapid material exhibits some similarities to European adapines like Adapis . The haplorhine primates are divided into two major groups: a "prosimian g roup" consisting of Tarsiidae and an unnamed group that is anatomically sim ilar to Omomyidae; and an "anthropoid group" consisting of Eosimiidae and a n unnamed group of protoanthropoids. The anthropoid tarsals are morphologic ally transitional between omomyids (or primitive haplorhines) and extant te lanthropoids, providing the first postcranial evidence for primates which b ridge the prosimian-anthropoid gap. All of the haplorhines are extremely sm all (most are between 50-100 g), and the deposits contain the smallest eupr imates ever documented. The uniqueness of this fauna is further highlighted by the fact that no modem primate community contains as many tiny primates as does the fauna from Shanghuang. (C) 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.