Plesiadapis

Plesiadapis Temporal range: Late Paleocene-Early Eocene PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N
P. cooki fossil
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	†Plesiadapiformes
Superfamily:	†Plesiadapoidea
Family:	†Plesiadapidae
Genus:	†Plesiadapis Gervais, 1877
Type species
†Plesiadapis tricuspidens
Paleospecies
†Plesiadapis walbeckensis Russell, 1964 †Plesiadapis remensis Lemoine, 1887 †Plesiadapis tricuspidens Gervais, 1877 †Plesiadapis russelli Gingerich, 1976 †Plesiadapis insignis (Piton, 1940) †Plesiadapis praecursor Gingerich, 1975 †Plesiadapis anceps Simpson, 1936 †Plesiadapis rex (Gidley, 1923) †Plesiadapis gingerichi Rose, 1981 †Plesiadapis churchilli Gingerich, 1975 †Plesiadapis fodinatus Jepsen, 1930 †Plesiadapis dubius (Matthew, 1915) †Plesiadapis simonsi Gingerich, 1975 †Plesiadapis cookei Jepsen, 1930

†Plesiadapis walbeckensis Russell, 1964
†Plesiadapis remensis Lemoine, 1887
†Plesiadapis tricuspidens Gervais, 1877
†Plesiadapis russelli Gingerich, 1976
†Plesiadapis insignis (Piton, 1940)
†Plesiadapis praecursor Gingerich, 1975
†Plesiadapis anceps Simpson, 1936
†Plesiadapis rex (Gidley, 1923)
†Plesiadapis gingerichi Rose, 1981
†Plesiadapis churchilli Gingerich, 1975
†Plesiadapis fodinatus Jepsen, 1930
†Plesiadapis dubius (Matthew, 1915)
†Plesiadapis simonsi Gingerich, 1975
†Plesiadapis cookei Jepsen, 1930

Plesiadapis is one of the oldest known primate-like mammal genera which existed about 55-58 million years ago in North America and Europe.Plesiadapis means "near-Adapis", which is a reference to the Eocene lemuriform, Adapis. Plesiadapis tricuspidens, the type specimen, is named after the three cusps present on its upper incisors.

The first discovery of Plesiadapis was made by François Louis Paul Gervaise in 1877, who first discovered Plesiadapis tricuspidens in France. The type specimen is MNHN Crl-16, and is a left mandibular fragment dated to the early Eocene epoch.

This genus probably arose in North America and colonized Europe on a landbridge via Greenland. Thanks to the abundance of the genus and to its rapid evolution, species of Plesiadapis play an important role in the zonation of Late Paleocene continental sediments and in the correlation of faunas on both sides of the Atlantic. Two remarkable skeletons of Plesiadapis, one of them nearly complete, have been found in lake deposits at Menat, France. Although the preservation of the hard parts is poor, these skeletons still show remains of skin and hair as a carbonaceous film—something unique among Paleocene mammals. Details of the bones are better preserved in fossils from Cernay, also in France, where Plesiadapis is one of the most common mammals.

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Wikipedia