Description

Middle Eocene (Lower Lutetian)

Robiac, Languedoc-Roussillon Region, France

6mm tooth – upper molar crown.

Mammal, Primate.

Adapis is a genus of primate of the Family Adapidae, a group of Mid-Late Eocene primates known from Europe.  Studies of its postcranial skeleton reveal it was probably more of a slow climber like a modern loris rather than a runner and leaper like a modern lemur.

Primates, once common in North America and western Europe, became less numerous and diverse in the Middle Eocene. They died out completely in Europe in the Early Oligocene – perhaps just 10 million years later. Tropical forest was disappearing as climates became cooler and drier as a general trend from the Middle Eocene to the Pleistocene.