physical

A tiny, insect-eating animal with slender

limbs, a long tail and weighing in at no
more than 30 grams, has become the
earliest known primate in the fossil
record

About 7cm long, Archicebus lived in the

trees and its small, pointed teeth are
evidence that its diet consisted of insects.
The fossil's large eye sockets indicate a
creature with good vision and, according
to scientists, it probably hunted during
daytime.

the animal as having a very long tail,

slender limbs, a round face and feet
capable of grasping. "
because the animal was so small and
"active metabolically, it was probably
quite a frenetic animal, you could even
think anxious. Very agile in the trees,
climbing and leaping around in the
canopy. The world it inhabited along that
lake shore in central China was amazing –
hot, humid, very tropical."
When 55m years ago, China
Hubei province of China

Archicebus was alive during a period of

intense global warming known as the
palaeocene-eocene thermal maximum, a
time when palm trees would have been
growing as far north as Alaska.

Extinct an ancient group of primates that is now

restricted to the islands of South East
Asia
Archicebus skeleton is about 7m years
older than the oldest currently known
fossil primate skeletons,
including Darwinius massilae from
Messel in Germany,
living Archicebus's foot looks like that of a
modern-day marmoset, for example, the
 heel bone looks more like those seen in
the earliest fossil
anthropoids.. Archicebus achilles lived on
a humid, tropical lake shore 55m years
ago in what is now China and is the
ancestor of all modern tarsiers, monkeys,
apes and humans

features found in modern-day tarsiers

others found in anthropoids

It consists of two different types of data –

the first is genomic. If we sequence the
DNA of living primates and other
mammals, we find out that the closest
living relatives of primates are animals
like tree shrews and flying lemurs and
these are animals that only live today in
Asia, specifically south-eastern Asia."

At some point, the descendants of

Archicebus split into the lineages that
would later evolve into tarsiers and
anthropoids. The latter would then have
made their journey to Africa and, millions
of years later, evolved into humans.

Researchers say Archicebus belongs on a
branch of the primate evolutionary tree that
eventually evolved into tarsiers, small mammals
with big round eyes that live in Asia.
The fossilised skeleton, however, has some
features – like a characteristic heel bone – that
are still found in our closest animal relatives
today.

.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jun/05/earliest-known-primate-archicebus-achilles

This suggests that the animal probably appeared on Earth very shortly after diverging from the group
of animals that includes monkeys and humans.
Further analysis of the remains could yet make it a human ancestor, according to the scientists.
The fossil, which is named after the Greek God Achilles due to an odd heel bone it has, was
discovered in a slab of slate in the Jingzhou area of eastern China, just south of the Yangtze river,
by a local farmer around 10 years ago.
They believe Archicebus, which was less than three inches long and would have weighed between
20 to 30 grams, had feet like a small monkey, beady little eyes and sharp molar teeth.
It probably ate insects and lived in the branches of the tropical forests that would have covered the
area at the start of the Eocene, when mammals started to dominate the Earth.
“This was a tiny delicate primate,” said Mr Beard. “It was probably quite a frenetic animal, and even
anxious. It would have moved around a lot looking for its next meal climbing and leaping around in
the canopy.”
The researchers undertook a painstaking 10 years of analysis of the fossil in an attempt to head off
some of the controversy that has surrounded other recent primate discoveries.
In 2009 palaeontologists revealed they had found a 47 million primate called Darwinius massillae,
nicknamed Ida, that was described as a "missing link" between early primates and humans.
Their claims were widely disputed by other scientists.
Last year scientists also unveiled a rodent like creature called Purgatorius that they claimed was the
earliest known primate at 65 million years old, but researchers are still split on whether it was a true
primate.
If it is proved not to be a primate then Archicebus could be the earliest example of a primate yet
discovered.
Archicebus achilles.  (MAT SEVERSON/AFP)

The results of the analysis of Archicebus are published in the journal Nature.

Dr Xijun Ni, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing, China, who was one of the leading
members of the research team, said: “We spent a long time with this fossil and examined a lot of
other specimens so we could place it as accurately as we can.
“It will tell us a lot of stories about the origins of primates and our remote ancestors.”
While scientists agree that humans first evolved in Africa, the discovery of the fossil now suggests
that was not where our part of the primate family started.
Dr Beard believes that our early primate ancestors began developing in Asia before moving to Africa
around 35 million years ago.
“Here is a fossil that is very, very close to the evolutionary divergence of tarsiers and anthropoids.
“The heel and foot in general was one of the most shocking parts of this fossil when we first saw it.
The foot looks like one from a small monkey, a marmoset.
“The heel bone is the reason we named it Achilles in the end and it looks like one from the earliest
anthropoid we had evidence for.
“I think what it means is that the common ancestors of anthropoids and tarsiers had features that
were more like anthropoids than tarsiers.”

https://phys.org/news/2013-06-oldest-primate-skeleton.html

https://www.nature.com/news/oldest-primate-skeleton-unveiled-1.13142