There are no fossil ancestors of monkeys

From EvoWiki

Contents 1 Claim 2 Source 3 Responses 4 Fallacies contained in this claim 5 Related claims 6 See Also 7 Acknowledgments

Claim

There are no fossil ancestors of monkeys.

Source

• add source

Responses

1. "Monkeys", as a distinct group from apes, refers to not one but two taxonomic groups (i.e. the term is paraphyletic - no clade includes all monkeys without also including apes). The New World Monkeys (such as spider monkeys) are classed in the parvorder Platyrrhini, whereas both the Old World Monkeys (such as macaques and colubus monkeys) and apes are classified within the parvorder Catarrhini. Both of these do, in fact, have a fossil record, dating back to Branisella boliviana for the platyrrhines and Aegyptopithecus zeuxis (or Propliopithecus chirobates) for the catarrhines. The record is sparse but hardly non-existent, and we are quite fortunate to have anything at all, given that the habitat of monkeys is one of the worst for fossilization.
2. Prosimians, such as lemurs, lorises and tarsiers also consistute fossil ancestors (and living descendants of those ancestors) of the Simmiiforms.
3. The plesiadapids are the direct fossil ancestors of all primates.
4. add more responses

Fallacies contained in this claim

• Equivocation (What is a monkey?)
• Suppressed Evidence (of primate ancestors)

Related claims

• There are gaps between invertebrate-vertebrate
• There are gaps between fish-amphibian
• There are gaps between amphibian-reptile
• There are no fossil ancestors of dinosaurs
• There are gaps between reptile-bird
• There are gaps between reptile-mammal
• There are gaps between land mammals and whales
• Horse fossils don't show evolution
• There are no fossil giraffes with shorter necks
• Arthropods arose suddenly
• There are no fossil ancestors of insects
• There are no fossil ancestors of plants

See Also

• Why is Creationism not a Scientific Theory?
• Theory of Evolution

Acknowledgments