The evolutionary journey from primitive plesiadapiforms to early primates during the Paleocene and Eocene epochs represents a critical chapter in mammalian history.

Primates love to climb and most make their homes high up in the branches of trees, yet when this habit started has been a contentious issue. Now, the discovery of some ankle bones is making it ...

Learn more about the discovery of a giant possum in Big Bend National Park and how it’s connected to early primate evolution.

Prior to this discovery, the oldest evidence of stem, or early, primates in the fossil record dated back to the first 300,000 to 500,000 years of the Paleocene (the epoch that followed the Mesozoic).

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, which occurred about 55 million years ago, was one of the more dramatic climate changes in our earth's history. In the blink of a geological eye (30,000 years ...

The teeny primate crossover from Asia happened during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum when global temperatures rose at a rate and magnitude similar to today's global warming.

Tracking primates back to their origin is a thorny task. Scientists have used fossils as well as genetics to try to find the answer, but agreement between the two methods has been elusive. A new ...

During the early Paleocene, about 66 to 56 million years ago, a species of small mammal known as Mixodectes pungens inhabited western North America. It was first discovered more than 140 years ago ...

Whether these creatures were true primates or just very primate-like is still being debated, but they underwent a boom and bust during the Paleocene (about 65 to 55 million years ago).