Ekgmowechashala

{{Automatic taxobox

| fossil_range = {{fossilrange|30.8|26.3}}

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| taxon = Ekgmowechashala

| authority = Macdonald, 1963{{cite journal|last=MacDonald|first=James Reid|year=1963|title=The Miocene faunas from the Wounded Knee area of western South Dakota|journal=Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History|volume=125|pages=139–238|hdl=2246/1259}}

| display_parents = 2

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| type_species = {{extinct}}Ekgmowechashala philotau

| type_species_authority = Macdonald, 1963

| subdivision_ranks = Species

| subdivision = *{{extinct}}Ekgmowechashala philotau Macdonald, 1963

{{extinct}}Ekgmowechashala zancanellai Samuels, Albright, and Fremd, 2015{{cite journal | last1 = Samuels | first1 = Joshua X. | last2 = Albright | first2 = L. Barry | last3 = Fremd | first3 = Theodore J. | year = 2015 | title = The last fossil primate in North America, new material of the enigmatic Ekgmowechashala from the Arikareean of Oregon | journal = American Journal of Physical Anthropology | volume = 158 | issue = 1| pages = 43–54 | doi = 10.1002/ajpa.22769 | pmid = 26118778 }}

}}

{{lang|lkt|Ekgmowechashala}} (Sioux: "little cat man"{{cite book|last=Howells|first=William White|title=Getting here: the story of human evolution|year=1997|publisher=Howells House|isbn=978-0-929590-16-5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HLFzywF8OFsC&pg=PA69|access-date=10 October 2010|page=69}}) is an extinct genus of primate belonging to Adapiformes.

Description and significance

With a weight of approximately {{convert|5|lb}},{{cite news|title=25-Million-Year-Old Primate Fossil Dug Up at John Day Beds|url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-5037146.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121104214838/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-5037146.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=4 November 2012|access-date=11 October 2010|newspaper=The Columbian|date=15 January 1998}} around {{convert|1|ft|1}} tall and resembling a lemur, Ekgmowechashala is the only known North American primate of its time; it lived during the late Oligocene and early Miocene.{{cite book|last=Bishop|first=Ellen Morris|title=In search of ancient Oregon: a geological and natural history|year=2003|publisher=Timber Press|isbn=978-0-88192-590-6|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o5XxO3E8ap4C&pg=PA114|access-date=10 October 2010|page=114}}{{cite book|last1=McKenna|first1=Malcolm C.|last2=Bell|first2=Susan K.|title=Classification of Mammals: Above the Species Level|publisher=Columbia University Press|page=327|year=1997|isbn=978-0-231-11013-6}}{{cite journal|title=New strepsirrhine primate from the Late Eocene of peninsular Thailand (Krabi Basin)|first1=Laurent|last1=Marivaux|first2=Yaowalak|last2=Chaimanee|first3=Paul|last3=Tafforeau|first4=Jean-Jacques|last4=Jaeger|journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology|volume=130|issue=4|pages=425–434|year=2006|doi=10.1002/ajpa.20376|pmid=16444732}}

Classification

The classification of this form has long been problematic.{{cite book|last=Rose|first=Kenneth David|title=The beginning of the age of mammals|year=2006|publisher=JHU Press|isbn=978-0-8018-8472-6|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3bs0D5ix4VAC&pg=PA191|access-date=10 October 2010|page=191}} It was variously classified as a member of the extinct family Omomyidae (related to tarsiers) and the equally extinct Plagiomenidae (related to colugos), but has been recently reassigned to Adapiformes, the extinct relatives of lemurs and other strepsirrhines.{{cite book|last=Gunnell|first=Gregg F.|title=The primate fossil record|year=2002|publisher=Cambridge UP|isbn=978-0-521-66315-1|pages=45–82 [72]|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ezm1OA_s6isC&pg=PA72|author2=Kenneth D. Rose|editor=Walter Carl Hartwig|access-date=10 October 2010|chapter=Tarsiiformes: Evolutionary History and Adaptation|bibcode=2002prfr.book.....H}}{{cite book|last=Cartmill|first=Matt|title=The Human Lineage|year=2009|publisher=John Wiley and Sons|isbn=978-0-471-21491-5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5TRHOmTUTP4C&pg=PA115|author2=Fred H. Smith |author3=Kaye B. Brown |access-date=10 October 2010|page=115}}{{Cite journal | last1 = Ni | first1 = Xijun | last2 = Meng | first2 = Jin | last3 = Beard | first3 = K. Christopher | last4 = Gebo | first4 = Daniel L. | last5 = Wang | first5 = Yuanqing | last6 = Li | first6 = Chuankui | title = A new tarkadectine primate from the Eocene of Inner Mongolia, China: phylogenetic and biogeographic implications | journal = Proceedings of the Royal Society B | volume = 277 | issue = 1679 | pages = 247–256 | year = 2009 | doi = 10.1098/rspb.2009.0173 | pmid=19386655 | pmc=2842661}} A cladistic analysis by Ni et al. (2016) reaffirmed the adapiform placement of Ekgmowechashala by recovering it as sister group to Bugtilemur, Gatanthropus, and Muangthanhinius in Ekgmowechashalidae.{{cite journal | last1 = Ni | first1 = X. | last2 = Li | first2 = Q. | last3 = Li | first3 = L. | last4 = Beard | first4 = K. C. | year = 2016 | title = Oligocene primates from China reveal divergence between African and Asian primate evolution | journal = Science | volume = 352 | issue = 6286| pages = 673–677 | doi = 10.1126/science.aaf2107 | doi-access = free | pmid = 27151861 | bibcode = 2016Sci...352..673N }}

Paleobiology

The shape of its teeth,{{cite book|last=Fleagle|first=John C.|title=Primate adaptation and evolution|year=1999|publisher=Academic Press|isbn=978-0-12-260341-9|url=https://archive.org/details/primateadaptatio0000flea|url-access=registration|access-date=10 October 2010|page=[https://archive.org/details/primateadaptatio0000flea/page/378 378]}} and their likeness to those of raccoons, indicate that it ate soft fruit provided by the warm forests of the Rocky Mountains during the early Miocene.{{cite book|last=Delson|first=Eric|title=Encyclopedia of human evolution and prehistory|year=2000|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-8153-1696-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E8z9YZZiKHgC&pg=PA485|author2=Ian Tattersall |author3=John A. Van Couvering |page=485}}

Fossils

Fossil evidence of Ekgmowechashala was discovered on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, an Oglala Sioux Native American reservation in South Dakota.{{cite book|last=Mayor|first=Adrienne|title=Fossil legends of the first Americans|year=2005|publisher=Princeton UP|isbn=978-0-691-11345-6|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CMsgQQkmFqQC&pg=PA242|access-date=11 October 2010|page=242}} Molars were found in 1981 in the basin of John Day River, and these are in the collection of the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture;PLSS data for the site, A5930 (Rudio Creek 4), are missing. {{cite web|last=Bryant|first=Laurie J.|title=Report on the Assessment of Vertebrate Paleontological Collections, Burke Museum of Natural History, University of Washington|url=http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/collections/paleontology/collection_report.pdf|publisher=Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture|access-date=11 October 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090617180907/http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/collections/paleontology/collection_report.pdf|archive-date=17 June 2009|url-status=dead}} in the summer of 1997 John Zancanella of the Bureau of Land Management found a lower molar in the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument.{{cite news|last=Mortenson|first=Eric|title=Fossil Tooth Find Creates Stir|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=53gVAAAAIBAJ&pg=2317,3926846&dq=ekgmowechashala&hl=en|access-date=11 October 2010|newspaper=Eugene Register-Guard}}{{cite web |title=John Day Fossil Beds National Monument: Fossil List |url=http://www.nps.gov/archive/joda/faunaslist.htm |publisher=National Park Service |access-date=11 October 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100630083316/http://www.nps.gov/archive/joda/faunaslist.htm |archive-date=30 June 2010 }}

Ekgmowechashala philotau, known from material in Nebraska and South Dakota, was thought to be the only species of this genus, but material from Oregon has been recently described as a new species, E. zancanellai. A tooth from the Toledo Bend Ranch Local Fauna of far eastern Texas has been assigned to this genus.{{cite journal|title=Ekgmowechashala (Mammalia, ?Primates) from the Gulf coastal plain|last=Albright III|first=L. Barry|journal=Bulletin of the Florida Museum of Natural History|year=2005|volume=45|issue=4|pages=355–361|doi=10.58782/flmnh.alnj3664 }}