Subfossil Lemurs

Abstract

Seventeen species of large‐bodied lemurs recently lived on the island of Madagascar alongside their smaller‐bodied still‐extant relatives. Called koala lemurs, monkey lemurs, and sloth lemurs (because of their convergences with other, distantly related animals), these lemurs occupied a wide variety of niches, displayed a range of locomotor behaviors, and had distinctively different diets. Known to scientists for well over a century, these creatures sported bizarre adaptations that have long fascinated paleontologists. Advances in molecular techniques have allowed scientists to reconstruct likely divergence dates and relationships among living and extinct lemur taxa; the Archaeolemuridae and Palaeopropithecidae are related to Indriidae, and the Megaladapidae to Lemuridae. Extinction occurred well after humans colonized Madagascar. There is increasing evidence that hunting played a major role in their extinction. While several lived well into the last millennium, populations appear to have been decimated prior to approximately 1,000 years ago.

Reconstructing dietary ecology of extinct strepsirrhines (Primates, Mammalia) with new approaches for characterizing and analyzing tooth shape

“…The sample examined here includes individuals from the extinct families Archaeolemuridae (Archaeolemur and Hadropithecus), Palaeopropithecidae (Babakotia, Mesopropithecus, Palaeopropithecus) and Megaladapidae (Megaladapis), and the genus Pachylemur in the family Lemuridae. Palaeopropithecids and Megaladapis appear to have been primarily folivorous, while Pachylemur shared a primarily frugivorous diet with its extant lemurid relatives (Godfrey 2017). The archaeolemurids show an unusual dental morphology most like that of some cercopithecoid monkeys and suggesting a diet requiring frequent hard-object processing (Godfrey et al 2005(Godfrey et al , 2016.…”

Convergent evolution in lemur environmental niches

“…The Pleistocene highlands were cold and dry, consisting mostly of shrub, grass and heath vegetation, but there was a distinct shift to woodland/savanna mosaic during warm, moist conditions after the last glacial maximum (Burney et al, 2004). The paleoecology of sites in the central western highlands indicates it was a wooded marsh with ~20 sympatric, forest-dwelling lemur species, hippos and other humid forest elements (Crowley, Godfrey, & Irwin, 2011;Godfrey & Jungers, 2003). Several modern highland fragments with both wet and dry forest characteristics may be relicts of a pre-human mosaic landscape (Ganzhorn et al, 2006).…”

Insights from macroevolutionary modelling and ancestral state reconstruction into the radiation and historical dietary ecology of Lemuriformes (Primates, Mammalia)

“…The lemurs of Madagascar account for a quarter of global primate diversity, and, when recently extinct forms are considered, occupy ranges of body size, locomotor style, and dietary niche comparable to the diversity observed among all other living primates (1)(2)(3). The taxonomic and ecological diversity of lemurs greatly exceeds that of the relatively narrowly adapted Lorisiformes, which evolved in the presence of anthropoid primates on continental Africa and Asia (4).…”