New record of Neosaimiri (Cebidae, Platyrrhini) from the late Middle Miocene of Peruvian Amazonia

Laurent Marivaux (1) , Walter Aguirre-Diaz (2) , Aldo Benites-Palomino (2) , Guillaume Billet (3) , Myriam Boivin (4) , Francois Pujos (5) , Rodolfo Salas-Gismondi (2, 6) , Julia V. Tejada-Lara (7, 2, 8, 9) , Rafael Varas-Malca (2) , Pierre-Olivier Antoine (1)

1 UMR ISEM - Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier
2 MHN - Museo de Historia Natural de Lima
3 CR2P - Centre de Recherche en Paléontologie - Paris
4 INECOA - Instituto de Ecorregiones Andinas, Universidad Nacional de Jujuy
5 CONICET-IANIGLA - Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales [Mendoza]
6 UPCH - Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia
7 UNMSM - Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos
8 AMNH - American Museum of Natural History [New York, USA] = Musée américain d'histoire naturelle [New York, USA]
9 Columbia University [New York]

The Honda Group of La Venta, Colombia, has yielded a wide array of crown platyrrhine primates, documenting the late Middle Miocene epoch (ca. 13.1–12.6 Ma, Laventan South American Land Mammal Age). Although exceptional, this record represents only a snapshot of the evolutionary history of New World monkeys because virtually none of the primate taxa recorded at La Venta had so far been found elsewhere. We describe here few dental remains of a cebine platyrrhine discovered from Laventan deposits in the San Martín Department of Peru (Peruvian Amazonia). The primate dental specimens from that new fossil-bearing locality (TAR-31) are strongly reminiscent morphologically of the teeth of Neosaimiri fieldsi from La Venta. However, given that several aspects of the dental variability from TAR-31 are unknown, we prefer to provide an assignment with open nomenclature (i.e., Neosaimiri cf. fieldsi), instead of formally referring these remains to N. fieldsi, pending the discovery of additional specimens. The occurrence of Neosaimiri in Peru, in coeval deposits of La Venta, thus represents a second and southernmost record of that low-latitude genus in the Neotropics, thereby demonstrating its wide distribution along the northwestern edge of the Pebas Mega-Wetland System, in tropical western South America.

Mots clés: Primates; Tropical South America; Peru; Neogene; Laventan; Paleobiogeography

Domaines: Paléontologie

Laurent Marivaux, Walter Aguirre-Diaz, Aldo Benites-Palomino, Guillaume Billet, Myriam Boivin, et al.. New record of Neosaimiri (Cebidae, Platyrrhini) from the late Middle Miocene of Peruvian Amazonia. Journal of Human Evolution, 2020, 146, pp.102835. ⟨10.1016/j.jhevol.2020.102835⟩. ⟨hal-02887474⟩