Strepsirrhini or Strepsirhini is a suborder of primates that includes the lemuriform primates, which consist of the lemurs of Madagascar, galagos ("bushbabies") and pottos from Africa, and the lorises from India and southeast Asia. Collectively they are referred to as strepsirrhines. Also belonging to the suborder are the extinct adapiform primates which thrived during the Eocene in Europe, North America, and Asia, but disappeared from most of the Northern Hemisphere as the climate cooled. Adapiforms are sometimes referred to as being "lemur-like", although the diversity of both lemurs and adapiforms does not support this comparison.
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.
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.
Adapiformes is a group of early primates. Adapiforms radiated throughout much of the northern continental mass, reaching as far south as northern Africa and tropical Asia. They existed from the Eocene to the Miocene epoch. Some adapiforms resembled living lemurs.
Oligopithecidae is an extinct basal Catarrhine family from the late Eocene of Egypt as sister of the rest of the Catarrhines. Its members were probably insectivorous, due to their simple molars and cusp arrangement.
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.
Lemurs, primates belonging to the suborder Strepsirrhini which branched off from other primates less than 63 million years ago, evolved on the island of Madagascar, for at least 40 million years. They share some traits with the most basal primates, and thus are often confused as being ancestral to modern monkeys, apes, and humans. Instead, they merely resemble ancestral primates.
Azibiidae is an extinct family of fossil primate from the late early or early middle Eocene from the Glib Zegdou Formation in the Gour Lazib area of Algeria. They are thought to be related to the living toothcombed primates, the lemurs and lorisoids, although paleoanthropologists such as Marc Godinot have argued that they may be early simians. It includes the genera Azibius and Algeripithecus, the latter of which was originally considered the oldest known simian, not a strepsirrhine.
Djebelemuridae is an extinct family of early strepsirrhine primates from Africa. It consists of five genera. The organisms in this family were exceptionally small, and were insectivores. This family dates to the early to late Eocene. Although they gave rise to the crown strepsirrhines, which includes today's lemurs and lorisoids, they lacked the toothcomb that identifies that group.
Indohyaenodon is an extinct genus of placental mammals from family Indohyaenodontidae within extinct order Hyaenodonta, that lived during the early Eocene in India.
The evolutionary history of the primates can be traced back 57-90 million years. One of the oldest known primate-like mammal species, Plesiadapis, came from North America; another, Archicebus, came from China. Other similar basal primates were widespread in Eurasia and Africa during the tropical conditions of the Paleocene and Eocene. Purgatorius is the genus of the four extinct species believed to be the earliest example of a primate or a proto-primate, a primatomorph precursor to the Plesiadapiformes, dating to as old as 66 million years ago.
Cambaytherium is an extinct genus of placental mammals in the family Cambaytheriidae whose fossils were found in an open pit coal mine located in Gujarat, India. The mine was a treasure trove full of teeth and bones, over 200 of which were identified as belonging to Cambaytherium thewissi. The fossils were dated to the Early Eocene, 54.5 million years ago, making them slightly younger than the oldest known fossils belonging to the order Perissodactyla.
Muangthanhinius is a genus of adapiform primate that lived in Asia during the late Eocene.
Afradapis is a genus of adapiform primate that lived during the Late Eocene. The only known species, Afradapis longicristatus, was discovered in the Birket Qarun Formation in northern Egypt in 2009. While its geographic distribution is confined to Afro-Arabia, Afradapis belongs to the predominantly European adapiform family Caenopithecinae. This taxonomic placement is supported by recent phylogenetic analyses that recover a close evolutionary relationship between Afradapis and adapiforms, including Darwinius. While adapiforms have been noted for their strepsirrhine-like morphology, no adapiform fossil possesses the unique anatomical traits to establish an ancestor-descent relationship between caenopithecids and living strepsirrhines. It ate leaves and moved around slowly like lorises.
Asiadapis is a genus of adapiform primate that lived in India's Cambay Shale Formation during the early Eocene (Ypresian). It has two known species, Asiadapis cambayensis and Asiadapis tapiensis.
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.
Cambaytheriidae is a family of primitive four or five-toed ungulates native to the Indian subcontinent. They lived during the Early Eocene epoch and are distinguished by the presence of bunodont teeth suitable for eating tough vegetation. They are related to, but distinct from, the early perissodactyls, and may also be closely related to the anthracobunids as a sister group to the Perissodactyla.
Sunil Bajpai is the Chair Professor of Vertebrate Paleontology in the Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee. He is in service as a professor at IIT Roorkee since 1st January 1996 till 30 September 2026. He also served as the director of the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences from January 2013 to July 2018.
The Cambay Shale Formation is an Early Eocene-aged geologic formation in the Cambay Basin, India. It varies in thickness from a few meters on the margins of the basin to more than 2,500m in the depressions. It directly overlies the Olpad Formation and is, in turn, overlain by the Anklesvar Formation in the southern part of the basin and by Kalol Formation in the northern part of the basin. Further north, the Cambay Shale, in its lower part, is gradually replaced by tongues of paralic-deltaic Kadi Formation and finally by Tharad Formation.
Indodelphis is an extinct genus of opossum-like metatherian from Eocene of Cambay Shale Formation of India. The type and the only species is Indodelphis luoi.
