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Prosimians are the most primitive extant primates; they represent forms that were ancestral to monkeys, apes and humans. Prosimians are the only primates native to Madagascar, and are also found in Southeast Asia. With the exception of the tarsiers, all of the prosimians are in the suborder Strepsirrhini.The adapids are an extinct grouping that were most certainly prosimians and closely related to the strepsirhines. The omomyids are another extinct group of prosmians but they are believed to be haplorhines, closely related to the tarsiers, but an outgroup to the rest of the haplorrhines.
Classification
Although the prosimians were once considered a suborder of the Primate order (suborder Prosimii), they have been shown to be polyphyleticIn biology, a taxon is polyphyletic if it is descended from more than one root form. Scientific classification aims to group species together such that every group is descended from a single common ancestor, and the elimination of groups that are found to - that is, the smallest clade of related species that includes all of the prosimians also includes all of the primates. This relationship is shown by the bolded ranks in the list below of the current Primate classification between the order and familyIn biology, family is one of the levels of taxonomic classification of organisms. It lies between the less-specific order and the more-specific genus; ie, an order will contain one or more families, and a family will contain one or more genera. Humans, fo level.
- ORDER PRIMATES
- Suborder Strepsirrhini: non-tarsier prosimians
- Infraorder Lemuriformes
- Superfamily Cheirogaleoidea: dwarf and mouse lemurs
- Superfamily Lemuroidea : lemurs
- Infraorder ChiromyiformesThe Aye-aye Daubentonia madagascariensis is a primate native to Madagascar that combines rodent-like teeth with a long, thin middle finger to fill the ecological niche of a woodpecker. It taps on trees to find grubs, then gnaws holes in the wood and inser: Aye-aye
- Infraorder Loriformes : lorises, etc.
- Suborder Haplorrhini: tarsiers, monkeys and apes
Primates
