The First Primates

Primates are remarkably recent animals.  Most animal species flourished and became extinct long before the first monkeys and their prosimian ancestors evolved.  While the earth is about 4.54 billion years old and the first life dates to at least 3.5 billion years ago, the first primates did not appear until around 50-55 million years ago.  That was10-15 million years after the dinosaurs had become extinct.

65,000,000 years ago
present

Transitional primate-like creatures were evolving by the end of the Mesozoic Era (ca. 65.5 million years ago).  At that time, the world was very different from today.  The continents were in other locations and they had somewhat different shapes.  North America was still connected to Europe but not to South America.  India was not yet part of Asia but heading towards it at a surprisingly rapid rate of nearly 8 inches (20 cm.) per year.  Australia was close to Antarctica.  Most land masses had warm tropical or subtropical climates.
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