飛躍系列拼圖介紹

THE FIRST PRIMATES ~60 million years

A primate is a member of the biological order Primates, the group that contains lemurs, lorisids, galagos, tarsiers, monkeys, and apes, with the last category including great apes. With the exception of humans, who inhabit every continent on Earth, most primates live in tropical or subtropical regions of the Americas, Africa and Asia. Primates range in size from the Madame Berthe's Mouse Lemur weighing only 30 grams (1.1 oz) to the Mountain Gorilla weighing 200 kilograms (440 lb). According to fossil evidence, the primitive ancestors of primates may have existed in the late Cretaceous period around 65 million years ago, and the oldest known primate is the Late Paleocene Plesiadapis, c. 55–58 million years ago. Molecular clock studies suggest that the primate branch may be even older, originating in the mid-Cretaceous period around 85 mya. (click to see all the article on Wikipedia)

靈長類出現 ~6千萬年前

靈長類是生物學中，靈長目的一員，包含了狐猴，懶猴，嬰猴，眼鏡猴，猴和猿，最後者包含類人猿。除了人類居於世界各大洲而例外，大多數的靈長類動物居於美洲，非洲，亞洲的熱帶或亞熱帶地區。靈長類的尺寸範圍從30公克(1.1盎司)的伯特夫人鼠狐猴到200公斤(440磅)的山地大猩猩。根據化石證據顯示，最為原始的靈長類祖先可能存在於白堊紀末期，約6千5百萬年前，而已知最老的靈長類為晚古新世的更猴，約5千5百萬年到5千8百萬年前。而根據分子鐘的研究指出，靈長類始於更老的分支，於白堊紀中期，約8千5百萬年前。

(維基連結：分子鐘，靈長目) (分子鐘無中文版內容)