to the remaining lorisoids (the various types of galago), and more distantly to the lemurs of Madagascar. Their evolutionary history is uncertain since their fossil record is patchy and molecular clock studies have given inconsistent results. Evolutionary history Slow lorises (genus Nycticebus) are strepsirrhine primates and are related to other living lorisoids, such as the pygmy slow loris (Xanthonycticebus), slender lorises (Loris), pottos (Perodicticus), false pottos (Pseudopotto), angwantibos (Arctocebus), and galagos (family Galagidae), and to the lemurs of Madagascar. They are most closely related to the pygmy slow loris, followed by the slender lorises of South Asia, the angwantibos, pottos and false pottos of Central and West Africa. Lorisoids are thought to have evolved in Africa, where most living species occur; later, one group may have migrated to Asia and evolved into the slender and slow lorises of today. Lorises first appear in the Asian fossil record in the Miocene, with records in Thailand around 18 million years ago (mya) and in Pakistan 16 mya. The Thai record is based on a single tooth that most closely resembles living slow lorises and that is tentatively classified as a species of Nycticebus. The species is named ? Nycticebus linglom, using open nomenclature (the preceding "?" indicates the tentative nature of the assignment). Several lorises are found in the Siwalik deposits of Pakistan, dating to 16 to 8 mya, including Nycticeboides and Microloris. Most are small, but an unnamed form dating to 15–16 mya is comparable in size to the largest living slow lorises. Molecular clock analysis suggests that slow lorises may have started evolving into distinct species about 10 mya. They are thought to have reached the islands of Sundaland when the Sunda Shelf was exposed at times of low sea level, creating a land bridge between the mainland and islands off the coast of Southeast Asia. Discovery and taxonomy The earliest known mention of a slow loris in scientific literature is from 1770, when Dutchman Arnout Vosmaer (1720–1799) described a specimen of what we know today as N. bengalensis that he had received two years earlier. The French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, later questioned Vosmaer's decision to affiliate the animal with sloths, arguing that it was more closely aligned with the lorises of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Bengal. The word "loris" was first used in 1765 by Buffon as a close equivalent to a Dutch name, loeris.