Cuban monkey

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cuban monkeys
Fossil range: Oligocene-Miocene

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Primates
Family:	Pitheciidae
Subfamily:	Callicebinae
Tribe:	†Xenotrichini
Genus:	†Paralouatta Rivero & Arredondo, 1991

Palaeospecies

†Paralouatta varonai
†Paralouatta marianae

The Cuban monkeys are two extinct species of small primates that lived on the island of Cuba.

The Cuban fossil primate, Paralouatta varonai was described from a nearly complete cranium in 1991. This cranium and a number of isolated teeth and postcranial bones were found in a cave site in Pinar del Rio Province. The initial description of the cranium included a proposal that Paralouatta varonai was a close Caribbean relative of the extant Alouatta (howler monkeys) of Central and South America,^[1] but this taxonomic placement has been called into question with the analysis of the dental remains.^[2] Based on shared similarities with the two other Caribbean primates Xenothrix mcgregori and Antillothrix bernensis, MacPhee and Horovitz have proposed that the Caribbean primates are part of a monophyletic radiation which entered the Caribbean at the Oligocene-Miocene boundary. More recent research confirms this assessment and places these three species in the tribe Xenotrichini.^[3]

A second species of Paralouatta (P. marianae) has also been described.^[4]

[edit] References

^ Rivero, M. & Arredondo, O. (1991). "Paralouatta varonai, a new Quaternary platyrrhine from Cuba". Journal of Human Evolution 21: 1-11.
^ Horovitz, I. & MacPhee, R.D.E. (1999). "The quaternary Cuban platyrrhine Paralouatta varonai and the origin of the Antillean monkeys". Journal of Human Evolution 36 (1): 33-68. doi:10.1006/jhev.1998.0259 .
^ MacPhee, R.D.E. & Horovitz, I. (2004). "New Craniodental Remains of the Quaternary Jamaican Monkey Xenothrix mcgregori (Xenotrichini, Callicebinae, Pitheciidae), with a Reconsideration of the Aotus Hypothesis". American Museum Novitates 3434 (1): 1-51. doi:10.1206/0003-0082(2004)434<0001:NCROTQ>2.0.CO;2 .
^ MacPhee, R.D.E., Iturralde-Vinent, M.A., and Gaffney, E.S. (February 2003). "Domo de Zaza, an Early Miocene Vertebrate Locality in South-Central Cuba, with Notes on the Tectonic Evolution of Puerto Rico and the Mona Passage". American Museum Novitates 3394 (1): pp. 1–42. doi:10.1206/0003-0082(2003)394<0001:DDZAEM>2.0.CO;2.