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Palaeopropithecus ingens G. Grandidier, 1899

Large sloth lemur

 

 

Taxonomy & Nomenclature

 

 

Conservation Status

Extinct

Last record: 1620 (Godfrey, 2021); 510 ± 80 14C age BP ± SD (Michielsen et al., 2023)

IUCN RedList status: Extinct

 

Distribution

Madagascar

 

Biology & Ecology

 

 

Hypodigm

 

 

Media

 

 

References

Alcover, Josep Antoni et al. (1998). Mammal Species of the World: Additional Data on Insular Mammals. American Museum Novitates 3248, 29 pp., 1 table.

Ando, M. and Corbet, G.B. 1966. The Terrestrial Mammals of Western Europe. G.T. Foulis & Co., London, UK.

Burney, D. A., Pigott, B. L., Godfrey, L. R., Jungers, W. L., Goodmane, S. M., Wright, H. T. and Jull, A. J. T. 2004. A chronology for late prehistoric Madagascar. Journal of Human Evolution: 25-63.

Crowley, B. E. A refined chronology of prehistoric Madagascar and the demise of the megafauna. Quat. Sci. Rev. 29, 2591–2603 (2010).

Douglass, K., Hixon, S., Wright, H.T., Godfrey, L.R., Crowley, B.E., Manjakahery, B., Rasolondrainy, R., Crossland, Z. and Radimilahy, C. 2019. A critical review of radiocarbon dates clarifies the human settlement of Madagascar. Quaternary Science Reviews 221: 105878.

Flacourt, E. de. 1995. Histoire de la Grande Isle Madagascar. Édition annotée et présentée par Claude Allibert. INALCO, Paris.

Godfrey, L. (2021). Palaeopropithecus ingens. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2021: e.T136532A17971784. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2021-2.RLTS.T136532A17971784.en. Accessed on 14 June 2022.

Godfrey, L.R. and Jungers, W.L. 2003. The extinct sloth lemurs of Madagascar. Evolutionary Anthropology 12: 252-263.

Godfrey, L.R., Scroxton, N., Crowley, B.E., Burns, S.J., Sutherland, M.R., Pérez, V.R., Faina, P., McGee, D. and Ranivoharimanana, L. 2019. A new interpretation of Madagascar’s megafaunal decline: the “Subsistence Shift Hypothesis.”. Journal of Human Evolution 130: 126-140.

Goodman, S.M. and Jungers, W.L. 2014. Extinct Madagascar: Picturing the Island’s Past. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Goodman, Steven M. et al. (2013). Bird fossils from Ankilitelo Cave: Inference about Holocene environmental changes in Southwestern Madagascar. Zootaxa 3750(5): 534-548.

Herrera, J. P. & Dávalos, L. M. Phylogeny and divergence times of lemurs inferred with recent and ancient fossils in the tree. Syst. Biol. 65, 772–91 (2016).

Hoffmann, M. (2008a). Palaeopropithecus ingens. In: IUCN 2013. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.1. (http://www.iucnredlist.org). Downloaded on 15 August 2013.

Hoffmann, M. (2008b). Palaeopropithecus ingens. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2008: e.T136532A4306543. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2008.RLTS.T136532A4306543.en. Downloaded on 26 June 2021.

Joseph, Grant S. and Seymour, Colleen L. (2022). Are Madagascar's obligate grazing-lawns ancient and evolved with endemic herbivores, or recently selected by introduced cattle? Biology Letters 18: 20220212.
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2022.0212

Jungers, W.L., Demes, B. & Godfrey, L.R. 2008 How big were the "giant" extinct lemurs of Madagascar? In Elwyn Simons: a search for origins (ed. J.G. Fleagle & C.C. Gilbert), pp. 343-360. New York: Springer.

Karanth, K.P., Delefosse, T., Rakotosamimanana, B., Parsons, T.J. & Yoder, A.D. 2005 Ancient DNA from giant extinct lemurs confirms single origin of Malagasy primates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 102, 5090-5095.

Kistler, L. et al. Comparative and population mitogenomic analyses of Madagascar’s extinct, giant ‘subfossil’ lemurs. J. Hum. Evol. 79, 45–54 (2015).

Kouvari, M. & van der Geer, A. A. E. Biogeography of extinction: The demise of insular mammals from the Late Pleistocene till today. Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 505, 295–304 (2018).

Michielsen, Nathan M., Goodman, Steven M., Soarimalala, Voahangy, van der Geer, Alexandra A. E., Dávalos, Liliana M., Saville, Grace I., Upham, Nathan and Valente, Luis. (2023). The macroevolutionary impact of recent and imminent mammal extinctions on Madagascar. Nature Communications 14: 14. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-35215-3 [Supplementary Data 1 (mammal list); Supplementary Data 6 (references)]

Orlando, L., Calvignac, S., Schnebelen, C., Douady, C.J., Godfrey, L.R. & Hänni, C. 2008 DNA from extinct giant lemurs links archaeolemurids to extant indriids. BMC Evolutionary Biology 8, 121.

Perez VR, Godfrey LR, Nowak-Kemp M, Burney DA, Ratsimbazafy J, Vasey N. (2005). Evidence of early butchery of giant lemurs in Madagascar. J. Hum. Evol. 49:722-742. [Abstract]

Simons EL (1997) Lemurs: old and new. In Goodman SM and Patterson BD, eds, Natural Change and Human Impact in Madagascar, pp. 142–166. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington.

Turvey, Samuel T. (2009). Holocene mammal extinctions, pp. 41-61. In: Turvey, Samuel T. (ed.). Holocene Extinctions. Oxford, UK & New York, USA: Oxford University Press. xii + 352 pp.

Turvey, Samuel T. and Fritz, Susanne A. (2011). The ghosts of mammals past: biological and geographical patterns of global mammalian extinction across the Holocene. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 366(1577): 2564-2576. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2011.0020 [Supplementary Information]

Upham, N. S., Esselstyn, J. A. & Jetz, W. Inferring the mammal tree: Species-level sets of phylogenies for questions in ecology, evolution, and conservation. PLOS Biol. 17, e3000494 (2019).

 

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