ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on aspects of evolutionary trends and functional inferences. It discusses the approach that paleontologists take prior to the actual publication of scientific data and its multifaceted interpretations and applications. Practicing paleontologists cannot be overly concerned about the "first" species of primates, lagomorphs, odd- or even-toed ungulates, or other higher categories. The chapter describes that undoubted primates available from Paleocene sediments of Europe and North America may be classified in one of four families. These families, the Paromomyidae, Picrodontidae, Plesiadapidae, and Carpolestidae, represent a natural superfamily, the Plesiadapoidae, which radiated from taxa that might be classified as paromomyids. The chapter also discusses a frequently neglected facet in interpretations of feeding adaptations. It is important for the paleobiologist making inferences from fossils and from the inferred functional evidence to consider the absolute body size of members of a radiation, to the extent that this can be determined from the usual representatives of a species, its teeth and jaws.
