Abstract

In recent years, much of the discussion on phylogenetic relationships between South American platyrrhine primates and Afro-Asian catarrhines has focused on the possible effects of continental drift and transoceanic rafting on the Oligocene-Recent distributional patterns of these mammals in the southern continents (Hoffstetter, 1972, 1974; Keast, 1972; Lavocat, 1974a; Cracraft, 1974). The Oligocene-Recent distribution of hystricognathous rodents in the southern continents is strikingly similar to the primate pattern, and most students of mammalian evolution and paleozoogeography are in agreement that the mode of dispersal was probably the same for both taxa. There is considerable disagreement, however, concerning the monophyletic or diphyletic relationships of the South American and African primates and hystricognathous rodents, as well as contrasting hypotheses on the area of origin of these taxa (cf. Hoffstetter, 1972, 1974; Patterson and Pascual, 1972; Lavocat, 1969; 1974a,b,; Wood, 1972, 1974; Wood and Patterson, 1970; Hershkovitz, 1972). Unfortunately, speculations on zoogeographic aspects of primate evolution have not been accompanied by careful phylogenetic analyses of characters which might corroborate or refute the hypothesis of anthropoidean monophyly. Most students of primate comparative anatomy and paleontology tend to specialize on catarrhines, platyrrhines, or strepsirhines, and, as a result, few have evaluated the phylogenetic significance of morphological features across a broad spectrum of primates. Similar limitations are encountered in studies on rodent phylogeny.

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