Phylogeny and Paleobiogeography of Platyrrhine Primates: The Patagonian connection.

TEJEDOR, MARCELO; NOVO, NELSON

San Juan

Congreso; IV Congreso Latinoamericano de Paleontología de Vertebrados; 2011

Museo de Ciencias Naturales de San Juan

PHYLOGENY AND PALEOBIOGEOGRAPHY OF PLATYRRHINE PRIMATES: THE PATAGONIAN CONNECTION TEJEDOR, Marcelo F. 1, 2 & NOVO, Nelson 1, 3 1 Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET). 2 Centro Nacional Patagónico- CONICET. Boulevard Alte. Brown 2915, (9120) Puerto Madryn, Provincia de Chubut, Argentina. tejedor@cenpat.edu.ar 3 Laboratorio de Investigaciones en Evolución y Biodiversidad, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales, Sede Esquel, Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia “San Juan Bosco”. Sarmiento 849, (9200) Esquel, Provincia de Chubut, Argentina. nelsonovo@gmail.com The early to middle Miocene Patagonian primates are relatively diverse compared to other primate assemblages in South America and the Caribbean, and exhibit several unusual characters that   sometimes led to misinterpretations on their affinities with living forms. Living platyrrhines inhabit only the Neotropical Region, and controversies have arisen about the extinct Patagonian primates as an integrated part of the Neotropical radiation. Thus, two opposing phylogenetic models are currently under debate. One of them considers the Patagonian primates as stem platyrrhines (Kay et al, 2008), and the second, maintained here (see also Rosenberger, 2010), supports the evolutionary continuity of primates from Patagonia and the Neotropics, especially with the middle Miocene primate fauna from La Venta, Colombia. Several Patagonian taxa are related to extant subfamilies via dental and cranial characters, also resembling certain groups from La Venta. Extinct Patagonian cebines, such us Dolichocebus (Kraglievich, 1951) and Killikaike Tejedor et al., 2006, are probably related each other, while dental characters link Dolichocebus with cebines from La Venta. On the other hand, the Patagonian pitheciines Mazzonicebus Kay, 2010, Soriacebus Fleagle et al., 1987, and, definitively, Proteropithecia Kay et al., 1998, represent ancient forms of a clade including the more modern Laventan pitheciines. Finally, the Patagonian Tremacebus (Hershkovitz, 1974) may be part of the lineage leading to the extant Aotus, also reinforced by the presence of an extinct Aotus species in La Venta. Recent estimates of primate divergences integrating paleontological and molecular data provide a temporal framework supporting the idea that Patagonian primates are part of the crown Platyrrhini (Wilkinson et al., 2011). As an additional scenario supporting these phylogenetic relationships, we suggest here a possible paleobiogeographic connection, persistence of a Paleobiogeographic Corridor along Western South America, considering that the Andean cordillera did not represent a geographic barrier for primate dispersal to the west and north by the time of the early platyrrhine radiation, and the fact that several Miocene mammalian assemblages are represented along western South America, from Argentina and Chile up to Colombia. The dynamics of the Andean tectonics along this western corridor could easily have allowed a later diversification of platyrrhines into the Amazonian basin.