Carpolestes is a genus of extinct primate-like mammals from the late Paleocene of North America. It first existed around 58 million years ago. The three species of Carpolestes appear to form a lineage, with the earliest occurring species, C. dubius, ancestral to the type species, C. nigridens, which, in turn, was ancestral to the most recently occurring species, C. simpsoni.[1]
Carpolestes had flattened fingernails on its feet but with claws on its fingers.[2] Morphologically it supports Robert Sussman's theory[3] of the co-evolution of tropical fruiting Angiosperms and early primates where Angiosperms provide nectar and fruits in return for dispersing the seed for tropical rainforest plants. It appears to have been a distant relative of the Plesiadapiforms such as Plesiadapis.
^ abcBloch, J.I.; D.C. Fisher; K.D. Rose & P.D. Gingerich (2001). "Stratocladistic analysis of Paleocene Carpolestidae (Mammalia, Plesiadapiformes) with description of a new late Tiffanian genus". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 21 (1): 119–131. doi:10.1671/0272-4634(2001)021[0119:SAOPCM]2.0.CO;2. S2CID 86026612.
^Helen Pilcher "Flower Child" in New Scientist, The Collection, The Human Story (2014)
^Sussman, Robert “Primate origins and the Evolution of Angiosperms” in American Journal of Primatology Vol 23, No.4 (1991) pp209-223
Carpolestes is a genus of extinct primate-like mammals from the late Paleocene of North America. It first existed around 58 million years ago. The three...
Carpolestes simpsoni is an extinct species of Plesiadapiforms, late species of Carpolestes which is one of the earliest primate-like mammals appearing...
Carpodaptes which lived in the late Paleocene and subsequently gave rise to Carpolestes from the early Eocene. As a result, they have been used as biostratigraphic...
plagiaulacoids. These would be multituberculates, some "Plesiadapiformes" such as Carpolestes and various metatherians such as Epidolops and various early diprotodontians...
†Carpocristes Beard & Wang 1995 Genus †Carpodaptes Matthew & Granger 1921 Genus †Carpolestes Simpson 1928 sensu lato [Litotherium Simpson 1929; Carpomegodon Bloch...
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