The zoogeographic and phylogenetic relationships of early catarrhine primates in Asia

Abstract Catarrhines originated in Afro-Arabia during the Paleogene, and were restricted to this zoo-geographic province until the early Miocene. During this period of isolation, several major clades of catarrhines originated. The pliopithecoids were the first catarrhines to migrate out of Africa at ~18– 20 Ma, while contemporary proconsulids and dendropithecids may have been restricted to Afro-Ara-bia. Hominoids and Old World monkeys originated in Africa prior to 20 Ma, but neither clade became an important component of the catarrhine fauna until the middle to late Miocene. At ~15–17 Ma, hom-inoids expanded into Eurasia, while cercopithecids arrived somewhat later, during the late Miocene. The earliest catarrhines in Eurasia, Dionysopithecus and Platodontopithecus from Sihong in China (~17–18 Ma), represent the primitive sister group of all other pliopithecoids. From this ancestral stock in Asia, the more specialized pliopithecines extended their range westwards into Europe by ~16– 17 Ma, where a pliopithecine-like common ancestor gave rise to the crouzeliines. The only known crouzeliine from Asia, Laccopithecus, from the late Miocene of China, points to a late arrival of this clade in the region. Small catarrhines from the middle Miocene of Pakistan (~16–17 Ma), and new material from China, may possibly have closer ties with dendropithecids, proconsulids, or hylobatids