What is "strepsirrhini"

Strepsirrhini or Strepsirhini (; ) is a suborder of primates that includes the lemuriform primates, which consist of the lemurs of Madagascar, galagos ("bushbabies") and pottos from Africa, and the lorises from India and southeast Asia. Also belonging to the suborder are the extinct adapiform primates, a diverse and widespread group that thrived during the Eocene (56 to 34 million years ago [ mya]) in Europe, North America, and Asia, but disappeared from most of the Northern Hemisphere as the climate cooled. The last of the adapiforms died out at the end of the Miocene (~7 mya). Adapiforms are sometimes referred to as being "lemur-like", although the diversity of both lemurs and adapiforms does not support this comparison. The two leading taxonomic classifications for the suborder divide living strepsirrhine primates into either two superfamilies (Lemuroidea and Lorisoidea) within the infraorder Lemuriformes or two infraorders, Lemuriformes and Lorisiformes. The suborder represents a related group, and replaced the widely used and now obsolete suborder Prosimii (" prosimians"), which included strepsirrhines and tarsiers, a grouping based primarily on shared anatomical traits. Today, Strepsirrhini excludes the tarsiers, which are now grouped in the other major primate suborder, Haplorhini, along with the monkeys and apes ( simians or anthropoids). Strepsirrhines are often inappropriately referred to as " living fossils". Instead, they have evolved for millions of years under natural selection, and have diversified to fill many ecological niches. Some of their traits may be derived from ancestral primates, while others are unique to strepsirrhines.

Strepsirrhines are defined by their wet nose or rhinarium. They also have a smaller brain than comparably sized simians, large olfactory lobes for smell, a vomeronasal organ to detect pheromones, and a bicornuate uterus with an epitheliochorial placenta. Their eyes contain a reflective layer to improve their night vision, and their eye sockets include a ring of bone around the eye, but they lack a wall of thin bone behind it. Strepsirrhine primates produce their own vitamin C, whereas haplorhine primates must obtain it from their diets. Lemuriform primates are characterized by a toothcomb, a specialized set of teeth in the front, lower part of the mouth mostly used for combing fur during grooming. Often, the toothcomb is incorrectly used to characterize all strepsirrhines. Instead, it is unique to lemuriforms and is not seen among adapiforms. Lemuriforms groom orally, and also possess a grooming claw on the second toe of each foot for scratching in areas that are inaccessible to the mouth and tongue. It is unclear whether adapiforms possessed grooming claws.

The taxonomy of strepsirrhines is controversial and has a complicated history. Confused taxonomic terminology and oversimplified anatomical comparisons have created misconceptions about primate and strepsirrhine phylogeny, illustrated by the media attention surrounding the single "Ida" fossil in 2009. Strepsirrhines diverged from the haplorhine primates near the beginning of the primate radiation between 55 and 90 mya. Older divergence dates are based on genetic analysis estimates, while younger dates are based on the scarce fossil record. Lemuriform primates may have evolved from either cercamoniines or sivaladapids, both of which were adapiforms that may have originated in Asia. They were once thought to have evolved from adapids, a more specialized and younger branch of adapiform primarily from Europe. Lemurs rafted to Madagascar between 47 and 54 mya, whereas the lorises split from the African galagos around 40 mya and later colonized Asia. Both living and extinct strepsirrhines are behaviorally diverse, although all are primarily arboreal (tree-dwelling). Most living lemuriforms are nocturnal, while most extinct adapiforms were diurnal. Both living and extinct groups primarily fed on fruit, leaves, and insects. Many of today's strepsirrhines are endangered due to habitat destruction, hunting for bushmeat, and live capture for the exotic pet trade.