Explain what scientists have discovered regarding the major adaptations associat

Question

Explain what scientists have discovered regarding the major adaptations associated with each of the following transformational in our evolutionary history:
Paleocene primates

Prosimians of the Eocene thermal optimum (teilhardina, notharctus, and Darwinius)

Early anthropoids

Early Miocene forest dwelling, frugivorous apes (proconsul heseloni, p. Nyanzae, p. Major)

Middle Miocene forest dwelling, frugivorous apes like afropithecus, helipithecus, ouranopithecus Explain what scientists have discovered regarding the major adaptations associated with each of the following transformational in our evolutionary history:
Paleocene primates

Prosimians of the Eocene thermal optimum (teilhardina, notharctus, and Darwinius)

Early anthropoids

Early Miocene forest dwelling, frugivorous apes (proconsul heseloni, p. Nyanzae, p. Major)

Middle Miocene forest dwelling, frugivorous apes like afropithecus, helipithecus, ouranopithecus
Paleocene primates

Prosimians of the Eocene thermal optimum (teilhardina, notharctus, and Darwinius)

Early anthropoids

Early Miocene forest dwelling, frugivorous apes (proconsul heseloni, p. Nyanzae, p. Major)

Middle Miocene forest dwelling, frugivorous apes like afropithecus, helipithecus, ouranopithecus

Explanation / Answer

PALEOCENE PRIMATES

      Despite a diversity a mammal-like reptiles in the Permian, mammals evolved in a world in which dinosaurs and their reptilian relatives dominated a variety of ecological niches.  The Tertiary Period begins with the Paleocene, immediately following the final extinction of most of these reptiles.  From a small number of generalist stem mammals, mammals evolve into a diversity of forms to fill these vacant niches.  The earliest mammals had more teeth than humans; the human tooth formula is 2,1,2,3/2,1,2,3 (2 incisors, 1 canine, 2 premolars, and 3 molars in both the upper and lower jaws.

Prosimians of the Eocene thermal optimum (teilhardina, notharctus, and Darwinius)

The mammalian order Primates made its first appearance in the fossil record during the Paleocene–Eocene thermal maximum (PETM), the global greenhouse warming event that marks the beginning of the Eocene. Two primate superfamilies, Tarsioidea and Adapoidea, dominate early and middle Eocene primate faunas. Warm climates enabled primates to thrive, and warming events within the Eocene facilitated cosmopolitan dispersal. Declining diversity at the end of the Eocene reflects environmental cooling. Fossils of earliest Tarsioidea and Adapoidea are similar dentally, often confused, and appear closely related as stem or crown Haplorhini. The superfamily Tarsioidea is represented by a single genus, Tarsius, living today, while Adapoidea appear to be ancestral to living Anthropoidea. Little is known of the Eocene history of strepsirrhine Lemuroidea and Lorisoidea. Temporal scaling of molecular clock ages suggests that Strepsirrhini appeared before Haplorhini in the Paleocene or possibly with Haplorhini at the beginning of the Eocene. Substantial skeletons of Eocene primates like those of adapoid Darwinius and Europolemur from Messel in Germany and Notharctus and Smilodectes from western North America constrain phylogenetic interpretation of primate relationships much more than dental remains ever can.

Early anthropoids

Adaptive shifts associated with human origins are brought to light as we examine the human fossil record and study our own genome and that of our closest ape relatives. However, the more ancient roots of many human characteristics are revealed through the study of a broader array of living anthropoids and the increasingly dense fossil record of the earliest anthropoid radiations. Genomic data and fossils of early primates in Asia and Africa clarify relationships among the major clades of primates.

Early Miocene forest dwelling, frugivorous apes (proconsul heseloni, p. Nyanzae, p. Major)

Proconsul major, an extinct primate of the genus Proconsul, was possibly the ancestor of Afropithecus and showed hominid characteristics. It occurred during the early Miocene and was roughly, the size of a gorilla.

Proconsul major lived on the continent of Africa. Based upon dental morphology, Proconsul major was a frugivorous species.

Proconsul nyanzae is a species of fossil primate first discovered by Louis Leakey on Rusinga Island in 1942, which he published in Nature in 1943. A joint publication of Wilfrid Le Gros Clark and Louis Leakey in 1951, "The Miocene Hominoidea of East Africa", first defines Proconsul nyanzae. In 1965 Simons and Pilbeam replaced Proconsulwith Dryopithecus, using the same species names.

Middle Miocene forest dwelling, frugivorous apes like afropithecus, helipithecus, ouranopithecus

On the basis of industrial computed tomography, relative enamel thickness (RET) is computed in three Middle Miocene hominoids from Abocador de Can Mata Pierolapithecus catalaunicus from BCV1 and Anoiapithecus brevirostris from C3-Aj, interpreted as stem hominids; and Dryopithecus fontani from C3-Ae of uncertain phylogenetic affinities. Pierolapithecus displays an average RET value of 19.5, Anoiapithecus of 18.6 and Dryopithecus of 10.6. The thick-enamelled condition of Pierolapithecus and Anoiapithecus is also characteristic of afropithecids, including the more derived kenyapithecins from the early Middle Miocene of Eurasia (Griphopithecus and Kenyapithecus). Given the presence of other dentognathic and craniofacial similarities, thick enamel may be interpreted as a symplesiomorphy of the Hominidae (the great ape and human clade), which would have been later independently modified along several lineages.

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