Carpolestes

{{Short description|Extinct genus of mammals}}

{{Italic title}}

{{Automatic Taxobox

| name = Carpolestes

| fossil_range = Late Paleocene, {{Fossil range|61.7|55.8}}{{cite journal | author = Bloch, J.I. | author2 = D.C. Fisher | author3 = K.D. Rose | author4 = P.D. Gingerich | name-list-style = amp | year = 2001 | title = Stratocladistic analysis of Paleocene Carpolestidae (Mammalia, Plesiadapiformes) with description of a new late Tiffanian genus | journal = Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology | volume = 21 | issue = 1 | pages = 119–131 | doi = 10.1671/0272-4634(2001)021[0119:SAOPCM]2.0.CO;2| s2cid = 86026612 }}

| image = CarpolestesCL.png

| image_caption = Carpolestes simpsoni

| taxon = Carpolestes

| authority = Simpson, 1928

| type_species = †Carpolestes nigridens

| subdivision_ranks = Paleospecies

| subdivision = †C. dubius Jepsen, 1930

†C. nigridens Simpson, 1928

†C. simpsoni Bloch and Gingerich, 1998

†C. twelvemilensis Mattingly, Sanisidro & Beard, 2017

}}

Carpolestes is a genus of extinct primate-like mammals from the late Paleocene of North America. It first existed around 58 million years ago. The three species of Carpolestes appear to form a lineage, with the earliest occurring species, C. dubius, ancestral to the type species, C. nigridens, which, in turn, was ancestral to the most recently occurring species, C. simpsoni.

Carpolestes had flattened fingernails on its feet but with claws on its fingers.Helen Pilcher "Flower Child" in New Scientist, The Collection, The Human Story (2014) Morphologically it supports Robert Sussman's theorySussman, Robert “Primate origins and the Evolution of Angiosperms” in American Journal of Primatology Vol 23, No.4 (1991) pp209-223 of the co-evolution of tropical fruiting Angiosperms and early primates where Angiosperms provide nectar and fruits in return for dispersing the seed for tropical rainforest plants. It appears to have been a distant relative of the Plesiadapiforms such as Plesiadapis.