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illustrations of this material, except for the claws. He compared the claws to those of the
flying lemur, Cynocephalus, noting that they were similar in being mediolaterally narrow
and dorsoventrally deep. The task of describing the rest of the material was left to later
researchers. Simons (1964: p. 56, fig. 3) was the first to figure and discuss some of this
new material. It is difficult to assess which particular specimens the illustrations in
Simons (1964) were based on, because they have been reconstructed to varying degrees.
However, some of the lower limb bones appear to correspond to MNHN R 408 (a
complete femur) and MNHN R 410 (a fragmentary tibia), considered by Russell (1964)
to be components of the same individual. It is important to note that MNHN R 410 lacks
both its proximal and distal ends. Simons considered Plesiadapis to have been a
treeshrew or tree squirrel-like arborealist, and reiterated Russell’s observation regarding
similarity between the claws of Plesiadapis and Cynocephalus.
Russell (1967) studied a slab-preserved specimen of Piton’s (1940)
Menatotherium insigne from the Menat Basin in central France, and recognized its
dentition as pertaining to Plesiadapis insignis. This unnumbered specimen and another
lacking a skull, housed at the MNHN, allowed future researchers to estimate limb lengths
and indices for P. insignis (see below). The small size of P. insignis, its similarity to
early-occurring North American forms of Plesiadapis, and contextual information from
the deposits that yielded the specimen, suggested to Gingerich (1976) and others that this
specimen was probably contemporaneous with Tiffanian 1 index taxon Plesiadapis
praecursor, making it the oldest known postcranial remains of a plesiadapid at the time
(older than that from Cernay and the Mason Pocket). I was able to observe the type
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