Boyer diss 2009 1046..

have a lacrimal bone that retains its tubercle. These last two character states are also seen
in carpolestids and other plesiadapiforms.
Bloch and Boyer (2002, 2007), Sargis et al. (2007), and Kirk et al. (2008)
demonstrated that carpolestids have a number of postcranial specializations for pedal and
manual grasping. Bloch and Boyer (2003, 2007), Bloch et al. (2007), and Sargis et al.
(2007) acknowledged that if character states considered to be carpolestid and euprimate
grasping specializations are homologous, and plesiadapids are the sister taxon of
carpolestids, then plesiadapids must have evolved a number of similarities (such as a
divergent, but unopposable hallux, and an entocuneiform with a large plantodistal
process) to non-carpolestid plesiadapiforms (e.g., paromomyids) convergently or in
parallel. This hypothesis predicts that the common ancestor of Plesadapidae and
Carpolestidae, and possibly early plesiadapids, should look more like Carpolestes. Boyer
et al. (2004) claimed that several features of Nannodectes intermedius support this
hypothesis, but the differences cited to separate larger plesiadapids from Nannodectes are
either subtle and not statistically significant, or are not clearly directly related to
differences in character states reflecting grasping specializations that make Carpolestes
specifically “euprimate-like.” Furthermore, new information from the postcranium of
Plesiadapis cookei does not add support to the hypothesis that plesiadapids and
carpolestids have a common ancestor that is carpolestid-like (Chapter 4).
In all of the ways that plesiadapids differ cranially and postcranially from
Carpolestes, they are similar to known paromomyids (Kay et al., 1992; Wible, 1993;
Bloch and Silcox, 2001; Silcox, 2003). Furthermore, although most plesiadapids have a
promontorium that is dorsoventrally deep compared to its mediolateral breadth, the
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