Teilhardina

taxobox
name = "Teilhardina"cite journal | author = Tornow, M.A. | year = 2008 | title = Systematic analysis of the Eocene primate family Omomyidae using gnathic and postcranial data | journal = Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History | volume = 49 | issue = 1 | pages = 43-129 | url = http://www.bioone.org/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.3374%2F0079-032X%282008%2949%5B43%3ASAOTEP%5D2.0.CO%3B2]
fossil_range = Fossil range|56|47Early Eocene - Middle Eocene
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Mammalia
ordo = Primates
subordo = Haplorrhini
familia = †Omomyidae
genus = †"Teilhardina"
genus_authority = Simpson, 1940
subdivision_ranks = Species
subdivision =
* †"Teilhardina crassidens"
* †"Teilhardina belgica"
* †"Teilhardina americana"
* †"Teilhardina brandti"
* †"Teilhardina demissa"
* †"Teilhardina tenuicula"
* †"Teilhardina asiatica"
* †"Teilhardina magnoliana"

"Teilhardina" was an early marmoset-like primate that lived in Europe, North America and Asia during in the Early Eocene epoch, about 56-47 million years ago.cite journal | author = Smith, T. | coauthors = Rose, K.D.; Gingerich, P.D. | year = 2006 | title = Rapid Asia-Europe-North America geographic dispersal of earliest Eocene primate "Teilhardina" during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum | journal = Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | volume = 103 | issue = 30 | pages = 11223 | doi = 10.1073/pnas.0511296103] cite journal | author = Beard, K.C. | year = 2008 | title = The oldest North American primate and mammalian biogeography during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum | journal = Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | volume = 105 | issue = 10 | pages = 3815 | url = http://www.carnegiemnh.org/vp/media/beard.pnas.2008.pdf | doi = 10.1073/pnas.0710180105] The paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson is credited with naming it after Jesuit paleontologist and philosopher Teilhard de Chardin. It is known from quite a few species:

* †"Teilhardina crassidens"
* †"Teilhardina belgica"
* †"Teilhardina americana"
* †"Teilhardina brandti"
* †"Teilhardina demissa"
* †"Teilhardina tenuicula"
* †"Teilhardina asiatica"
* †"Teilhardina magnoliana"

The placement of this genus is uncertain and it is likely to be polyphyletic. [http://www.helsinki.fi/~mhaaramo/metazoa/deuterostoma/chordata/synapsida/eutheria/primates/primates_1.html Primates ] ] Two species ("T. belgica" and "T. asiatica") appear to be haplorrhine, but equally ancestral to both modern tarsiers and simians, and the genus should be reserved for those two species only. The others appear to be anaptomorphine omomyids (and thus more closely related to the tarsiers than to simians) and should have a new genus erected. [http://www.fmnh.helsinki.fi/users/haaramo/Metazoa/deuterostoma/chordata/Synapsida/Eutheria/Primates/tarsiiformes/anaptomorphinae.htm Omomyidae: Anaptomorphinae ] ]

References