Biretia
Encyclopedia
Biretia is an extinct genus of Old World monkey
Old World monkey
The Old World monkeys or Cercopithecidae are a group of primates, falling in the superfamily Cercopithecoidea in the clade Catarrhini. The Old World monkeys are native to Africa and Asia today, inhabiting a range of environments from tropical rain forest to savanna, shrubland and mountainous...

, of the extinct family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 Parapithecidae
Parapithecidae
Parapithecidae is an extinct family of primates which lived in the Eocene and Oligocene periods in Egypt. Eocene fossils from Burma are sometimes included in the family in addition. They showed certain similarities in dentition to Condylarthra, but had short faces and jaws shaped like those of...

. Fossils are found from Late Eocene
Eocene
The Eocene Epoch, lasting from about 56 to 34 million years ago , is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Palaeocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the...

 strata of Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

.

The first discovery of Biretia was a single tooth at the Bir el Ater site. Aged at approximately 37 mya Original species found was Biretia piveteaui found in 1988. Recently however two new species have been classified, B. fayumensis and B. megalopsis both in 2005. Discovered in Birket Qarun Locality 2 (BQ-2) located about 60 mi south of Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

 in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

's Fayum depression. A very small anthropoid it only weighed around 280 to possibly 380 grams. Fragments from the jaw suggest it had had very large eyes in proportion to its body size which would suggest that it was nocturnal. "Biretia is unique among early anthropoids in exhibiting evidence for nocturnality, but derived dental features shared with younger parapithecids draw this genus, and possibly 45-million-year-old Algeripithecus
Algeripithecus
Algeripithecus is a genus of primates. Its status as an antherpoid or strepsirrhine is under debate.150 to 300 grams extinct primate of 50 to 46 million years ago; fossils found in Algeria; considered by some authorities the leading candidate for the first anthropoid...

 (Strepsirrhini
Strepsirrhini
The clade Strepsirrhini is one of the two suborders of primates. Madagascar's only non-human primates are strepsirrhines, and others can be found in southeast Asia and Africa...

), into a morphologically and behaviorally diverse parapithecoid clade of great antiquity."

The smallest of the species B. fayumensis had an estimated weight of 273 g, while the largest of Biretia, the B. megalopsis had a weight of about 376g. Adaptations of the skull of B. megalopsis are easily comparable to the modern Tarsius a small, modern Asian primate whose nocturnal insectivorous lifestyle. We infer this possibility of a nocturnal lifestyle from B. megalopsis truncated molar root, which was so in order to made room for the large eye socket typical of a nocturnal primate. The large eye structure and similarity to the modern Tarsius also suggests that it has lost its tapetum lucidum. Thus, B. megalopsis demonstrates itself as being the oldest known nocturnal primate.

The genus is otherwise known only from a handful of fossil fragments, including a few maxilla fragments and some teeth and teeth fragments from the different species.

Fossil fragments The fossil fragments found for B. fayumensis, new species, include a composite of isolated P2 (DPC 21759C), P3(DPC 21249E), P4 (DPC 21371A), M1 (DPC 21250D), and M2 (DPC 21539E. For B. megalopsis, new species, maxilla with M1 through M3 (DPC 21358F).

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