Toward understanding primate origins: a story of arboreal mammals

Living in trees induces strong constraints that reflect in the evolution of animal morphologies. Many mammals are arboreal and exhibit a great diversity in their adaptations. Primates are interesting because their first representatives appeared in an arboreal context ~65 mya and acquired a set of unique morphological characters, such as fingernails, an opposable big toe and a larger brain. Yet the functional and evolutionary interpretation of these specializations remains uncertain, and the origins of primates are subject to controversies. I study the evolution of arboreal adaptations in mammals through an interdisciplinary approach, combining paleontology, functional morphology, ethology and the design of new imaging and robotic technologies. This work notably has allowed to re-evaluate fundamental hypotheses on primate origins and phylogenetic relationships within euarchontans, and opens exciting perspectives on the impact of arboreality in the evolution of neurobiological capacities in mammals.