文摘
More than a century of research in Madagascar has yielded 17 species of extinct lemurs, all of large size and all with patterns of locomotor behaviour that are not found in extant lemurs. Some morphological convergence has been recognized with Catarrhini and other groups of mammals, but very little research had been conducted in north-western Madagascar. Thirteen years of fieldwork by a French-Malagasy team has now produced a large body of information on subfossils in this area. A new species of subfossil lemur was discovered with similar locomotor behaviour than the extant South-American sloth. The known biodiversity of lemurs from 26 000 to 500 years ago was even greater than it is today. Particular efforts were made regarding palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. Our methodology brought the discovery of two species of extinct rodent and of very ancient anthropic traces indicating that humans coexisted with subfossil species for longer than was previously thought. While humans may have been ultimately responsible for their extinction, the impact of their presence was not immediate.