Earliest-known treeshrew fossil found in Yunnan, China
Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - 09:44
in Paleontology & Archaeology
Treeshrews are widely considered a "living model" of an ancestral primate, and have long been called"living fossils". Actual fossils of treeshrews, however, are extremely rare. In a paper published 14 January in Scientific Reports (6), Drs. LI Qiang and NI Xijun, Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology (IVPP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, reported a new fossil species of Ptilocercus treeshrew from the early Oligocene (over 34 million years ago) of China that represents the oldest definitive fossil record of the crown group of treeshrews and nearly doubles the temporal length of their fossil record.