Talk:Purgatorius

Paleospecies
The Purgatorius article is not about a mammal in particular, its about a paleospecies, one of the earliest primates called proto-primates and is a species of plesiadapaformes. This article is an anthropological studies article not a mammalian article. If any refinement on category is to be made, it could at least be classified as primate. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 169.229.118.197 (talk • contribs).


 * Um... yes, this is a paleospecies, but it happens to be a mammaliam paleospecies. What's your point? What parts are you objecting to, and how would you like them changed? Be more specific. - UtherSRG (talk) 18:15, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Clemens 2007
The fourth reference in the article cites. However, this is not the article in that issue of that journal. Something is wrong here, I can't find an article with that name anywhere. --Fama Clamosa (talk) 09:37, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: The reference in question was added October 2009 by . --Fama Clamosa (talk) 09:55, 20 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I have found it using Google Scholar: Clemens, W. A., and W. V. Koenigswald. "Purgatorius, plesiadapiforms, and evolution of Hunter–Schreger bands." J. Vertebr. Paleontol 11 (1991). It's cited by the article whose DOI was given. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 16:58, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Conflicting weight estimates
In the second paragraph: "a few ounces (about 1–2 kg)". 206.192.193.157 (talk) 20:38, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Late Cretaceous
In the last day or so, someone changed the automatic Taxobox to read Cretaceous-Paleocene from Paleocene. Someone else then improved it by changing Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous. The problem is that Purgatorius is generally considered early Paleocene. The oldest fossils were found about two meters (representing a few hundred thousand years) above the K/Pg boundary in the Hell Creek Formation, which is generally described as either Late Cretaceous or Late Cretaceous-Paleocene. The K/Pg boundary is clearly visible in this formation. Even though "common sense" tells you that Purgatorius probably existed in the Late Cretaceous, I haven't been able to find any references to that effect. Thus, I think this is OR unless someone can come up with a reference.

Purgatorius was also recently added to Vertebrate fauna of the Maastrichtian stage. Even though I removed it with an explanatory comment, it was back again with no explanation. Zyxwv99 (talk) 14:30, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Just wanted to add that there is nothing in this article to support a Late Cretaceous origin for Purgatorius. Zyxwv99 (talk) 14:33, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Phylogenetic position of Purgatorius
As the article was written, it gave the impression that the consensus among palaeontologists is now that Purgatorius is a stem placental. This doesn't seem correct based on a quick scan of the recent literature, so I removed mention of thie from the introduction and instead expanded a little on the alternative claims in the 'Relationship' section. This seems to better represent the expert opinion (for now).Kaficek (talk) 17:59, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Possible ancestor of all living mammals?
If this species was a possible ancestor of all living mammals (having somehow survived the global devastation caused by the meteor that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs c. 66 million years ago), shouldn't we mention that in this article, if only briefly, in order to be as encyclopedic as possible? The current version of the article doesn't mention either "dinosaurs" or "meteor" in the text of the article. 173.88.246.138 (talk) 00:06, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
 * If you read the taxobox and lede, you'll note that Purgatorius is thought to be a plesiadapiform or basal primate, and not the ancestor of all living mammals, which would have been alive during the early Cretaceous. That, and the article doesn't need to mention the dinosaurs or meteors or other irrelevant topics for it to be encyclopedic.--Mr Fink (talk) 01:45, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The IP is probably misled by the questionable 2015 study that places Purgatorius outside crown placentals, or confusing Purgatorius with Eomaia (or possibly Juramaia), a basal mammal which I remember being covered widely in the popular press, like Purgatorius (which was reported on in 2015 in the context of the mentioned study, and Eomaia was mentioned again in the same year along with the discovery of Spinolestes). Unlike Eomaia and even more so Juramaia, Purgatorius is nowhere close to the MRCA of all living mammals (some 200 million years ago), nor a close relative, seems to have resembled treeshrews in particular while apparently being more closely related to colugos and primates within Eurarchonta, but its dating to close to the K/T boundary evidently did mislead the IP, who did not know that even the MRCA of all placental mammals must well precede that point. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:32, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Classification as Primatomorpha
With the sole exception of the (apparently controversial) 2015 study, there seems to be a consensus that Purgatorius along with Ursolestes and hence the whole Purgatoriidae clade belongs to the clade Primatomorpha. The only controversy concerns the placement within that clade. Per Plesiadapiformes, even the structure of that group is not certain and crown Primates may even have emerged within it, while there are various other possibilities. So the minimum consensus is Primatomorpha. Wouldn't it be better, then, to classify Purgatoriidae directly as Primatomorpha in Template:Taxonomy/Purgatoriidae? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:46, 19 February 2024 (UTC)