类人猿（包括猴子、猿和人类在内的高等灵长类）的起源充满了神秘。来自非洲始新世的化石曾表明，它们起源于该大陆，但这个观点受到亚洲相关发现的挑战。现在，这个游戏又被始新世时期利比亚的几个类人猿灵长类物种的发现所改变，其中每个物种都属于一个不同的类别。
这表明，灵长类是早期分化的（可能是在亚洲），然后与其他种类的哺乳动物一起向非洲迁移。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐英文摘要：
Nature doi:10.1038/nature09425
Late middle Eocene epoch of Libya yields earliest known radiation of African anthropoids
Jean-Jacques Jaeger,jean-jacques.jaeger@univ-poitiers.frK. Christopher Beard,Yaowalak Chaimanee,Mustafa Salem,Mouloud Benammi,Osama Hlal,Pauline Coster,Awad A. Bilal,Philippe Duringer,Mathieu Schuster,Xavier Valentin,Bernard Marandat,Laurent Marivaux,Eddy Métais,Omar Hammuda& Michel Brunet
Reconstructing the early evolutionary history of anthropoid primates is hindered by a lack of consensus on both the timing and biogeography of anthropoid origins1, 2, 3. Some prefer an ancient (Cretaceous) origin for anthropoids in Africa or some other Gondwanan landmass4, whereas others advocate a more recent (early Cenozoic) origin for anthropoids in Asia1, 2, 5, with subsequent dispersal of one or more early anthropoid taxa to Africa. The oldest undoubted African anthropoid primates described so far are three species of the parapithecid Biretia from the late middle Eocene Bir El Ater locality of Algeria6 and the late Eocene BQ-2 site in the Fayum region of northern Egypt7. Here we report the discovery of the oldest known diverse assemblage of African anthropoids from the late middle Eocene Dur At-Talah escarpment in central Libya. The primate assemblage from Dur At-Talah includes diminutive species pertaining to three higher-level anthropoid clades (Afrotarsiidae, Parapithecidae and Oligopithecidae) as well as a small species of the early strepsirhine primate Karanisia. The high taxonomic diversity of anthropoids at Dur At-Talah indicates either a much longer interval of anthropoid evolution in Africa than is currently documented in the fossil record or the nearly synchronous colonization of Africa by multiple anthropoid clades at some time during the middle Eocene epoch.
