Kirk's discovery of late middle Eocene (Uintan) primates at the Devil's Graveyard Formation in Southwest Texas reveals new information about how North American primates evolved during this period of faunal (animal) reorganization.
"After several years of collecting new fossils, reviewing Texas' primate community and comparing it to other places in North America, we found a much more diverse group of primate species in Texas than we expected," Kirk said. "It seems that primates stuck around in Texas much longer than many other parts of the continent because the climate stayed warm for a longer period of time. While primate diversity was falling off precipitously in places like Utah and Wyoming during the late middle Eocene, west Texas provided a humid, tropical refuge for primates and other arboreal (tree-inhabiting) animals."
The anthropologists named the new primate Diablomomys dalquesti, combining "Diablo" to represent the Devil's Graveyard Formation (sand- and mudstones near Big Bend National Park) with Omomys, a related fossil genus. The dalquesti species name honors Walter and Rose Dalquest, who donated the land on which the fossil was collected (Midwestern State University's "Dalquest Research Site"). Walter was a Texas paleontologist and distinguished biology professor at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls until his death in 2000.
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Journal reference:
Williams et al. New Uintan primates from Texas and their implications for North American patterns of species richness during the Eocene. Journal of Human Evolution, October 2008; DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2008.07.007
Adapted from materials provided by University of Texas at Austin.
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MLA University of Texas at Austin (2008, October 20).
New Fossil Reveals Primates Lingered In Texas.
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Retrieved October 21, 2008, from
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