For Immediate Release Contact: Greg Borzo (312) 665-7106 gborzo@fieldmuseum.org But a “News & Views” commentary in the same issue of Nature by Dr. Martin disagrees with part of the authors’ interpretation of their new find. Based on T. asiatica’s small eye sockets relative to skull length, Ni and colleagues maintain that the small predator was diurnal (active during the day). Dr. Martin, on the other hand, says there is no compelling evidence from the fossil to shake the traditional belief that the common ancestor of primates, and early representatives such as members of the genus Teilhardina, were nocturnal (active at night). “I disagree with the authors on both statistical and biological grounds,” Dr. Martin says. “They excluded significant data in their analysis, and they did not adequately account for certain biological features, including the very large opening on the snout for the nerve connecting with the whiskers, which are best developed in nocturnal mammals.” Dispersal and biogeography The earliest known undoubted primate fossils are about 55-million-years old from sites in North America, Europe – and now Asia. Scientists had previously classified six of them in the genus Teilhardina. Ni adds T. asiatica to that group, which might therefore be thought to have dispersed throughout the northern continents. Continue