Evolution of lemurs | Wikipedia audio article
Channel: wikipedia tts
Date: 2019-05-10

This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_lemurs


00:02:19 1 Evolutionary history
00:10:05 1.1 Colonization of Madagascar
00:21:41 1.2 Diversification
00:27:24 2 Distribution and diversity



Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.

Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain

Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.

Listen on Google Assistant through Extra Audio:
https://assistant.google.com/services/invoke/uid/0000001a130b3f91
Other Wikipedia audio articles at:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wikipedia+tts
Upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
https://github.com/nodef/wikipedia-tts
Speaking Rate: 0.7903367301272546
Voice name: en-US-Wavenet-B


"I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think."
- Socrates


SUMMARY
=======
The evolutionary history of lemurs occurred in isolation from other primates, on the island of Madagascar, for at least 40 million years. Lemurs are primates belonging to the suborder Strepsirrhini, which branched off from other primates less than 63 mya (million years ago).  They share some traits with the most basal primates, and thus are often confused as being ancestral to modern monkeys, apes, and humans.  Instead, they merely resemble ancestral primates.
Lemurs are thought to have evolved during the Eocene or earlier, sharing a closest common ancestor with lorises, pottos, and galagos (lorisoids).  Fossils from Africa and some tests of nuclear DNA suggest that lemurs made their way to Madagascar between 40 and 52 mya. Other mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequence comparisons offer an alternative date range of 62 to 65 mya.  An ancestral lemur population is thought to have inadvertently rafted to the island on a floating mat of vegetation, although hypotheses for land bridges and island hopping have also been proposed. The timing and number of hypothesized colonizations has traditionally hinged on the phylogenetic affinities of the aye-aye, the most basal member of the lemur clade.
Having undergone their own independent evolution on Madagascar, lemurs have diversified to fill many niches normally filled by other types of mammals.  They include the smallest primates in the world, and once included some of the largest.  Since the arrival of humans approximately 2,000 years ago, lemurs are now restricted to 10% of the island, or approximately 60,000 square kilometers (23,000 square miles), with many facing extinction.