Megaladapis edwardsi Grandidier, 1899
Edward's koala lemur
Taxonomy & Nomenclature
Conservation Status
Extinct
Last record: 630 ± 50 14C age BP ± SD (Michielsen et al., 2023)
Distribution
Madagascar
Biology
Hypodigm
FMG 125
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.
Burney DA, Burney LP, Godfrey LR, Jungers WL, Goodman SM, Wright HT, and Jull AJT (2004) A chronology for late prehistoric Madagascar. Journal of Human Evolution 47, 25–63.
Crowley, B. E. A refined chronology of prehistoric Madagascar and the demise of the megafauna. Quat. Sci. Rev. 29, 2591–2603 (2010).
Crowley, Brooke Erin, Godfrey, Laurie Rohde and Samonds, Karen Elizabeth. (2023). What can hippopotamus isotopes tell us about past distributions of C4 grassy biomes on Madagascar? Plants, People, Planet. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10402
Godfrey, L.R., W. L. Jungers and G.T. Schwartz. (2006). Ecology and extinction of Madagascar’s subfossil lemurs. Pp. 41-64 in: Gould, L. and M. Sauther, eds., Lemurs: Ecology and Adaptation. Springer, New York.
Goodman, Steven M. et al. (2013). Bird fossils from Ankilitelo Cave: Inference about Holocene environmental changes in Southwestern Madagascar. Zootaxa 3750(5): 534-548.
Goodman, S. M. & Jungers, W. L. Extinct Madagascar: Picturing the island’s past. (University of Chicago Press, 2014).
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).
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
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).
Lorenz von Liburnau, L. R. (1905). Megaladapis edwardsi G. Grandidier: Denkschrift der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien 77: 451-490.
MacPhee RDE and Flemming C (1999) Requiem æternam: the last 5 ve hundred years of mammalian species extinctions. In MacPhee RDE, ed., Extinctions in Near Time: Causes, Contexts, and Consequences, pp. 333–371. Kluwer Academic/Plenum, New York.
Meador, Lindsay Renee. (2017). Who Ate the Subfossil Lemurs? A Taphonomic and Community Study of Raptor, Crocodylian and Carnivoran Predation of the Extinct Quaternary Lemurs of Madagascar. Dissertation. xvii + 388 pp.
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)]
Mitchell, Kieren J. (2021). Ancient DNA from the koala lemur puts Madagascar on the paleogenomic map. PNAS 118(30): e2110218118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2110218118
Montagnon D, Ravaoarimanana B, Rakotosamimanana B, Rumpler Y. (2001). Ancient DNA from Megaladapis edwardsi (Malagasy subfossil): preliminary results using partial cytochrome b sequence. Folia Primatol 72(1): 30-32.
Muldoon, Kathleen M. et al. (2012). Early Holocene fauna from a new subfossil site: A first assessment from Christmas River, south central Madagascar. Madagascar Conservation & Development 7(1): 23-29.
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.
Rafferty, K. L., Teaford, M. F. and Jungers, W. L. (2002). Molar microwear of subfossil lemurs: improving the resolution of dietary inferences. Journal of Human Evolution 43: 645-657.
Rosenberger, Alfred L. et al. (In Press, 2015). Giant subfossil lemur graveyard discovered, submerged, in Madagascar. Journal of Human Evolution. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.01.004
Simon, E. L. Lemurs: Old and new. in Natural change and human impact in Madagascar (eds. Goodman, S. M. & Patterson, B. D.) 142–166 (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997).
Tattersall, I. (1973). A note on the age of the subfossil site of Ampasambazimba, Miarinarivo Province, Malagasy Republic. American Museum Novitates 2520: 1-6.
Turvey, Samuel T. (2009a). In the shadow of the megafauna: prehistoric mammal and bird extinctions across the Holocene, pp. 17-39. In: Turvey, Samuel T. (ed.). Holocene Extinctions. New York: Oxford University Press.
Turvey, Samuel T. (2009b). 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).
Zapfe, H. (1963). Lebensbild von Megaladapis edwardsi (Grandidier): Ein Rekonstruktionsversuch. Folia primatol. 1: 178-187.