Description

Late Eocene (Ludian)

Phosphorites de Quercy

La Bouffie, Quercy, France

3mm upper molar with root.

Mammal, Primate.

Necrolemur is an extinct genus of primate of the Family Omomyidae.  It lived during the Late Eocene, a time when primates were becoming uncommon in North America and Europe as tropical forests were well on their way to being replaced by the open woodlands of cooler, drier climates.  It was one of the last undisputed omomyid primates which may have been ancestral to modern tarsiers of southeast Asia.

It’s funny to think that lemur and tarsier-like primates were once common in the Early Eocene of North America (known from the Rocky Mountain states and Mississippi). This was before there were primates in South America and Africa.

This is the kind of a fossil you buy after you’ve collected mammals for a while and then realize you don’t have one one primate piece.