| Adapiformes | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Notharctus tenebrosus | |
Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Primates |
| Suborder: | Strepsirrhini |
| Infraorder: | †Adapiformes Hoffstetter, 1977 |
| Superfamily: | †Adapoidea Trouessart, 1879 |
| Families | |
| Synonyms | |
Adapiformes is a group of earlyprimates. Adapiforms radiated throughout much of the northern continental mass (nowEurope,Asia andNorth America), reaching as far south asnorthern Africa and tropical Asia. They existed from theEocene to theMiocene epoch. Some adapiforms resembled livinglemurs.
Adapiforms are known from the fossil record only, and it is unclear whether they form amonophyletic orparaphyletic group. When assumed to be aclade, they are usually grouped under the "wet-nosed" taxonStrepsirrhini, which would make them more closely related to the lemurs and less so to the "dry-nosed"Haplorhini taxon that includesmonkeys andapes.[4]
In 2009, Franzen and colleagues placed the newly described genusDarwinius in the "Adapoidea group of early primates representative of early haplorhine diversification" so that, according to these authors, the adapiforms would not be within the Strepsirrhini lineage as hitherto assumed but qualify as a stem "missing link" between Strepsirrhini and Haplorrhini.[5] However, subsequent analysis on theDarwinius fossil by Erik Seiffert and colleagues rejects this "missing link" idea, classifyingDarwinius and other adapiforms within the Strepsirrhini.[6]
Boyer et al. found that the crown Strepsirrhini likely emerged deep in the Adapiformes tree, possibly as sister of a group which include e.g.Aframonius andNotharctidae.[7] The Adapiformes are thus found not to be literally extinct (in the sense of having no living descendants), and becomes a junior synonym to the Strepsirrhini. Below is a simplified cladogram.
| Primates |
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A 2018 study putsDonrussellia as sister to crown primates.[8]
Adapiforms belong to the infraorder Adapiformes, which contains a single superfamily,Adapoidea.[9] The group also is sometimes treated as a superfamily (Adapoidea) alongside the other livingstrepsirrhine superfamilies, Lemuroidea (lemurs) andLorisoidea (lorises andgalagos).[10]
Rose (1995) suggests that early adapiforms andomomyiforms shared a common ancestor dating to theThanetianage.[11]
