Godinotia was a prosimian mammal, similar to the lemurs and the aye-aye of the modern age. About the size of a modern house cat, it was active mostly at night, not during the day unlike the true monkeys, such as Apidium, though it wasn't bothered by daylight either.
Facts[]
Godinotia was lived during the Eocene, 49 MYA, and is found only in Messel, Germany.
In Walking with... Series[]
Walking with Beasts[]
New Dawn[]
The first episode of Walking with Beasts depicts a family of Godinotia throughout the 24 hours covered by this episode. They were depicted as black-and-white mammals
Primitive monkeys of the Eocene: Godinotia on the left and Apidium on the right.
with somewhat dog-like faces unlike the more colorful and (relatively) more modern Apidium.
Unlike the Apidium, they were largely inactive during the day, though they did raise an alarm during a Gastornis attack, but their most active time came at night, when they awoke and began to hunt for insect larvae in the trees, and also to mate. (The book companion has them hunt Formicium as well.)
In any case, WWB claims that the modern humans eventually evolved from Godinotia and similar mammals, but the specific position of Godinotia as compared to the modern humans is very distant and vague.
A pair of Godinotia close up.