Pelycodus (from Ancient Greek πέλυξ (pélux), “bowl” + ὀδούς (odoús), “tooth”[2]) is an extinct genus of adapiform primate that lived during the early Eocene (Wasatchian) period in Europe and North America, particularly Wyoming and New Mexico.

[citation needed] Pelycodus was first identified as Prototomus jarrovii by Cope in 1874, who pronounced it a rare inhabitant of both Wyoming and New Mexico.

Over the next hundred years, approximately a dozen species were added, most more primitive dentally than the now renamed Pelycodus jarrovii.

However, there is almost no difference between the tarsal bones of the earliest Cantius and latest Pelycodus, indicating that their arboreal, quadrupedal locomotion was probably primitive.

[8] It is very well demonstrated that chronologically successive lineages of Cantius grew progressively larger mesostyles and hypocones, eventually gaining enough distinction dentally to be placed in the genus Pelycodus.