Today's photo is of a Lesser Tree Shrew (Tupaia minor), sitting still for a split second allowing me to get a somewhat blurry shot. I wasn't initially thinking of putting this one up today, but I thought it would be a topical choice given a new study in Scienceout this week that suggests Colugos (Family Cynocephalidae) may be more closely related to primates than Tree Shrews (Order Scandentia). Using partial genomic data from both groups (plus primates), the research team found that the colugos were more closely related to primates than the tree shrews, although we have yet to see if this relationship is supported by anatomical and paleontological data. Although I have not read the paper as yet (I do not have access to Science from home), the abstract hints at another interesting implication of the study; the researchers suggest that tree shrews arose 63 million years ago (after the Cretaceous mass extinction) but that the ancestors of modern primates and Colugos diverged during the Cretaceous about 86 million years ago (much older than the oldest known primate fossil). Again, I doubt this is the "last word" on the subject, (especially since the Colugo genome is not entirely sequenced and we haven't yet found the fossils to determine how accurate the estimated "ghost lineage" is) and I will be keeping my eyes open to see if there is support from the fossil record for this new arrangement. If you want to read a good overview of the research, be sure to check out Anne-Marie's summary.
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I like the wagging tongue!
Actually, Neil, that's a bit of food. The Tree Shrew as chewing so fast that the picture captured it (and its jaw) in motion. I was just glad to get any show that was mostly in focus since they are so hyperactive.
I happen to live in a country where in one of our forest reserves, colugos and tree shrews are not uncommon, and monkeys (long-tailed macaques) are everywhere. Might make an interesting set-up, if someone can somehow capture these three species all in a single photograph.
What dates were used for calibration?
I'll have to read that paper. I, like you, Brian, have no access to Science or Nature at home. This is quite funny, though, because I remember it being pounded into my head back in Anthropology that flying lemurs were NOT lemurs despite their names. Well, as it turns out, that might not be the case. :-)