Bownomomys was an early marmoset-like primate that lived in North America during the Early Eocene epoch, about 56–50 million years ago.
Taxonomy Teilhardina americana and T. crassidens were originally named as species of Teilhardina, usually considered a member of Omomyidae.T. M. Bown. 1976. Affinities of Teilhardina (Primates, Omomyidae) with Description of a New Species from North America. Folia Primatologica 25T. M. Bown and K. D. Rose. 1987. Patterns of Dental Evolution in Early Eocene Anaptomorphine Primates (Omomyidae) from the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming. Paleontological Society Memoir 23:1–162 However, phylogenetic analysis by Ni et al. (2004) recovered Teilhardina as polyphyletic, with Teilhardina belgica and T. asiatica nested as the basalmost haplorrhines, and T. americana and T. crassidens being recovered as anaptomorphine omomyids (and thus more closely related to the tarsiers than to simians). Teilhardina crassidens was later referred to the genus Baataromomys by Ni et al. (2007).Ni, X., Wang, Y., Hu, Y. & Li, C., 2004: A euprimate skull from the early Eocene of China. Nature: Vol. 427, #1, pp. 65–68X. Ni, K. C. Beard, J. Meng, Y. Wang, and D. L. Gebo. 2007. Discovery of the first early Cenozoic euprimate (Mammalia) from Inner Mongolia. American Museum Novitates 3571:1–11. A paper by Morse et al. built upon the cladistic results of Ni et al. (2004) by recognizing T. americana and T. crassidens as belonging to a new genus, which they named Bownomomys.Paul E. Morse; Stephen G.B. Chester; Doug M. Boyer; Thierry Smith; Richard Smith; Paul Gigase; Jonathan I. Bloch (2018). "New fossils, systematics, and biogeography of the oldest known crown primate Teilhardina from the earliest Eocene of Asia, Europe, and North America". Journal of Human Evolution. in press. .
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