Afrasia djijidae

Afrasia djijidae is a fossil primate that lived in Myanmar approximately 37 million years ago, during the late middle Eocene. The only species in the genus Afrasia, it was a small primate, estimated to weigh around 100 grams (3.5 oz). Despite the significant geographic distance between them, Afrasia is thought to be closely related to Afrotarsius, an enigmatic fossil found in Libya and Egypt that dates to 38–39 million years ago. If this relationship is correct, it suggests that early simians dispersed from Asia to Africa during the middle Eocene and would add further support to the hypothesis that the first simians evolved in Asia, not Africa. Neither Afrasia nor Afrotarsius, which together form the family Afrotarsiidae, is considered ancestral to living simians, but they are part of a side branch or stem group known as eosimiiforms. Because they did not give rise to the stem simians that are known from the same deposits in Africa, early Asian simians are thought to have dispersed from Asia to Africa more than once prior to the late middle Eocene. Such dispersals from Asia to Africa also were seen around the same time in other mammalian groups, including hystricognathous rodents and anthracotheres.

Afrasia djijidae

SEM images of the teeth: E. Bere/Universite de Poitiers, France Montage: Olivier Chavasseau · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
AfrasiaPBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Primates
Life habit
arborealPBDB, for Primates
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 3.4 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 41.03 Mya and 37.71 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Eocene — about 3 of 3 occurrencesEocene41–41 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences41–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences41.53 Mya37.21 Mya

3 occurrences of Afrasia djijidae on record, most of them in the Eocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

3 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Pondaung — 21.75°N, 94.62°EPondaung — 21.75°N, 94.65°EPondaung — 21.77°N, 94.85°E

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The named rock units Afrasia djijidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Afrasia djijidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Afrasia djijidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

24 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Afrasia djijidae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

1 reference

Each of the 3 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Afrasia djijidae

Credit
SEM images of the teeth: E. Bere/Universite de Poitiers, France Montage: Olivier Chavasseau
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Afrasia djijidae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itAfrasia through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Chaimanee et al. 2012