Further, that Sci-Am article that one of you mentioned also stated that the “cradle of primates” was actually Europe during an interglacial period roughly 10-5 MYA, making it equally difficult to find early specimens due to those same glaciers erasing the landscape. From Europe, they spread to Africa, where they rode out the ice ages and then spread across into Asia (Except for the Lemurs, who were already there). Those in Europe died out as the conditions grew colder.

Now, I suppose it is just possible that some of these early European Primates might have somehow made it across the Atlantic to North America, and once established, evolved into our dear Cryptids, though there you would have to explain the means of migration. Everything else I mentioned- recent arrival, elimination of possible fossils via glaciation, would still apply.

There is a bit of a fudge factor here, for although we know for certain that one particular Primate made it to North America via the Bering land bridge (making that the most likely vector of any other Primate), recent genetic studies have shown that many Native Americans possess a rare gene found only in Europeans, and that this is too widespread to have been caused by modern intermarriage. Therefore, the scientific suggestion here is that at least some Proto-Indians MUST have come from Europe prior to the last Asian migration roughly 11 TYA. Assuming that they didn’t have ocean-going vessels 30 TYA, they must have walked, and that means any other Primate could have done so too.

Obviously the dates are a bit off, and there’s no doubt a big difference between 8 MYA and 30 TYA (Although personally I hold to the genetic evidence that suggests North American settlement roughly 50 TYA), if there was a land bridge at 30 TYA, there might still have been one 8 MYA. As someone else here said, the continents don’t move that fast, but the time interval is enough for a discernable drift to have taken place.

Not sure if I’ve cleared things up for anybody, or muddied the waters further, but it’s food for thought nonetheless, and hopefully not too hard on anyone’s palate.

For instance why are there bears in both Southern Asia and South America but none in Africa? Why did large primates only evolve in Africa and Southeast Asia and not the Americas?