User:Kosigrim/P-clades

Phylogenetic relationships in a form of cladogram (clade concept) of primates (data from          )

Fossil discoveries have increased our knowledge of the morphology and diversity of early Haplorrhini, the suborder to which humans belong. Two great clades of living primates exist, the Strepsirrhini (Lemuriformes, Chiromyiformes, and Lorisiformes) and the Haplorrhini(Tarsiiformes and Simiiformes). Phylogenetic analysis of fossil taxa supports the hypotheses that a haplorrhine-strepsirrhine dichotomy existed at earliest Eocene. The oldest well-known anthropoids (Parapithecidae and Oligopithecidae) come from the late Eocene of Egypt about 37 million years ago. Functional analysis suggests that stem haplorrhines were small, nocturnal, arboreal, visually oriented insectivore-frugivores with a scurrying-leaping locomotion. A change from nocturnality to diurnality was the fundamental adaptive shift that occurred at the base of the tarsier-eosimiid-anthropoid clade.