Early evolution of primates and how to tell the story
Marc Godinot
Godinot, Marc, born in 1951 in a Lorraine village, France. He arrived in Paris in 1972 at the Ecole Normale Superieure. He achieved a first doctoral dissertation under D. E. Russell in 1976-77, working at the Museum on the early Eocene mammals of Rians (Provence). After several years of study of early Eocene mammals in Paris, he obtained a job at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. He had then to move to Montpellier, become a member of the paleomammalogist team there, and specialize on Eocene primates. Field work was done both in the Quercy and in early Eocene localities. Contributions included work on systematics, primate hands, limb bones and locomotion of primates and some other mammals. He was involved in European mammalian biochronology (1987, 97). Collaboration with Mahboubi led to contributions on primate phylogeny. In 1994 he was elected at a professorship at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes and moved back in Paris two years later, working again at the Museum. He was more involved in teaching, which eventually led to a contribution on primate origins. Field work continued in Le Quesnoy, an early Eocene locality, accompanied by an interest for Paleocene-Eocene boundary events (mammalian dispersals, 2003). Work in the Quercy continued through the systematic revision of large adapines and through field work. Recently he devoted more time to general aspects of evolution, philosophical questions and history of science, however technical contributions are continuing.