K. Christopher Beard is an American paleontologist, an expert on the primate fossil record and a 2000 MacArthur Fellowship "Genius" Award Winner. Beard's research is reshaping critical debates about the evolutionary origins of mammals, including primates, routinely questioning current thinking about their geographical origins. [1] Dr. Beard is the former Curator of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, [2] and Mary R. Dawson Chair of Vertebrate Paleontology, at University of Pittsburgh. [3] He is currently Distinguished Foundation Professor, Senior Curator at the University of Kansas. [4] He was co-author with Dan Gebo about an extinct primate from China. [5] Dr. Beard also authored the book The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey: Unearthing the Origins of Monkeys, Apes and Humans. [1] Beard was also part of the research teams that discovered Teilhardina , the earliest primate ever found in North America, and Eosimias , one of the earliest higher primates yet discovered. [1] He worked with NASA to scan a Tyrannosaurus rex skull. [6] Beard received his PhD from the Functional Anatomy and Evolution Program at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1989. [1]
Below is a list of taxa that Beard has contributed to naming:
Year | Taxon | Authors |
---|---|---|
2021 | Nesomomys bunodens gen. et sp. nov. | Beard, Métais, Ocakoğlu, & Licht [7] |
2019 | Chiromyoides kesiwah sp. nov. | Beard, Jones, Thurber, & Sanisidro [8] |
2018 | Carpolestes twelvemilensis sp. nov. | Mattingly, Sanisidro, & Beard [9] |
2016 | Apidium zuetina sp. nov. | Beard, Coster, Salem, Chaimanee, & Jaeger [10] |
2007 | Baataromomys ulaanus gen. et sp. nov. | Ni, Beard, Meng, Wang, & Gebo [11] |
Haplorhini, the haplorhines or the "dry-nosed" primates is a suborder of primates containing the tarsiers and the simians, as sister of the Strepsirrhini ("moist-nosed"). The name is sometimes spelled Haplorrhini. The simians include catarrhines, and the platyrrhines.
Tarsiiformes are a group of primates that once ranged across Europe, northern Africa, Asia, and North America, but whose extant species are all found in the islands of Southeast Asia. Tarsiers are the only living members of the infraorder; other members of Tarsiidae include the extinct Tarsius eocaenus from the Eocene, and Tarsius thailandicus from the Miocene. Two extinct genera, Xanthorhysis and Afrotarsius, are considered to be close relatives of the living tarsiers, and are generally classified within Tarsiiformes, with the former grouped within family Tarsiidae, and the latter listed as incertae sedis (undefined). Omomyids are generally considered to be extinct relatives, or even ancestors, of the living tarsiers, and are often classified within Tarsiiformes.
The simians, anthropoids, or higher primates are an infraorder of primates containing all animals traditionally called monkeys and apes. More precisely, they consist of the parvorders Platyrrhini and Catarrhini, the latter of which consists of the family Cercopithecidae and the superfamily Hominoidea.
Plesiadapiformes is an extinct basal pan-primates group, as sister to the rest of the pan-primates. The pan-primates together with the Dermoptera form the Primatomorpha. Purgatorius may not be a primate as an extinct sister to the rest of the Dermoptera or a separate, more basal stem pan-primate branch. Even with Purgatorius removed, the crown primates may even have emerged in this group.
Shoshonius is an extinct genus of omomyid primate that lived during the Eocene. Specimens identified as Shoshonius have been found exclusively in central Wyoming and the genus currently includes two species, Shoshonius cooperi, described by Granger in 1910, and Shoshonius bowni, described by Honey in 1990.
Teilhardina is an extinct marmoset-like omomyid primate that lived in Europe, North America and Asia during the Early Eocene epoch, about 56-47 million years ago. The paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson named it after the French paleontologist, Jesuit and philosopher Teilhard de Chardin.
Plesiadapidae is a family of plesiadapiform mammals related to primates known from the Paleocene and Eocene of North America, Europe, and Asia. Plesiadapids were abundant in the late Paleocene, and their fossils are often used to establish the ages of fossil faunas.
Altiatlasius is an extinct genus of mammal, which may have been the oldest known primate, dating to the Late Paleocene from Morocco. The only species, Altiatlasius koulchii, was described in 1990.
Ganlea is a fossil primate from central Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. Its age is about 38 million years, living during the late Eocene epoch. Ganlea belongs to the group of anthropoids, and is in the family Amphipithecidae. It is older than any other known anthropoid from Africa, and is the second oldest known from Asia. Its remains consist of teeth and jawbones belonging to 10 to 15 individuals found near the city of Bagan in the central part of the country.
This paleomammalogy list records new fossil mammal taxa that were described during the year 2012, as well as notes other significant paleomammalogy discoveries and events which occurred during that year.
The Willwood Formation is a sedimentary sequence deposited during the late Paleocene to early Eocene, or Clarkforkian, Wasatchian and Bridgerian in the NALMA classification.
This paleomammalogy list records new fossil mammal taxa that were described during the year 2013, as well as notes other significant paleomammalogy discoveries and events which occurred during that year.
This paleomammalogy list records new fossil mammal taxa that were described during the year 2011, as well as notes other significant paleomammalogy discoveries and events which occurred during that year.
This paleomammalogy list records new fossil mammal taxa that were described during the year 2010, as well as notes other significant paleomammalogy discoveries and events which occurred during that year.
This paleomammalogy list records new fossil mammal taxa that were described during the year 2009, as well as notes other significant paleomammalogy discoveries and events which occurred during that year.
The Amphipithecidae were simian primates that lived in Late Eocene and Early Oligocene. Fossils have been found in Myanmar, Thailand, and Pakistan. The limited fossil evidence is consistent with, but not exclusive to, arboreal quadrupedalism. In other words, the species may have moved about in trees on four legs, but not with regular leaping as seen in later simians.
Bownomomys was an early marmoset-like primate that lived in North America during the Early Eocene epoch, about 56-50 million years ago.
Wyonycteris is a genus of small mammals that existed in the late Paleocene and early Eocene epochs. The type species is Wyonycteris chalix, which lived in Wyoming during the Clarkforkian North American Land Mammal Age of the Paleocene and was originally proposed to be an early form of insectivorous bat. Later re-examination of the material has put this alliance in doubt, and the genus has instead been proposed as belonging to the subfamily Placentidentinae, within the family Nyctitheriidae. Similar fossil material of the same time period found in Europe was later discovered and described as new species, Wyonycteris richardi.
Chiromyoides is a small plesiadapid primatomorph that is known for its unusually robust upper and lower incisors, deep dentary, and comparatively small cheek teeth. Species of Chiromyoides are known from the middle Tiffanian through late Clarkforkian North American Land Mammal Ages (NALMA) of western North America, and from late Paleocene deposits in the Paris Basin, France.
Nesomomys is an extinct genus of omomyid that inhabited Turkey during the Eocene epoch. It is a monotypic genus known from a single species, N. bunodens.