March 26, 2003. A small collection of teeth and jaw fragments sifted from the Egyptian desert has provided the earliest fossil evidence for one of the three major lines of primates. The tiny fossils offer evidence that the ancestors of bushbabies and lorises appeared during the Eocene epoch that lasted from 55 million to 34 million years ago — at least twice as early as previous fossils had shown. These fossils represent the oldest known “toothcombed” prosimians — a group that also includes the lemurs of Madagascar. The other two primate groups are anthropoids (monkeys, apes and humans), and tarsiers. Read the full story here.
