Lufengpithecus

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Lufengpithecus
Temporal occurrence
Middle Miocene
12 to 8 million years
Locations
Systematics
Monkey (anthropoidea)
Old World Monkey (Catarrhini)
Human (Hominoidea)
Apes (Hominidae)
Ponginae
Lufengpithecus
Scientific name
Lufengpithecus
Wu , 1987

Lufengpithecus is an extinct genus of primates that was foundin Asia during the Middle Miocene . Fossils discoveredin China belonging to this genus were predominantly dated to around 9 to 8 million years ago. Fossils foundin Thailand , which were alsoattributed to Lufengpithecus in 2003, are believed to be 12 to 11 million years old.

Naming

Lufengpithecus is an artificial word . The name of the genus refers to the location in Lufeng County of Autonomous Prefecture of Chuxiong Yi in the Chinese province of Yunnan. The second half of the generic name is derived from the Greek word πίθηκος ( pronounced píthēkos in ancient Greek : "monkey"). Lufengpithecus thus means "monkey of Lufeng".

Finds

The morphological characteristics of the teeth and the bones below the head of Lufengpithecus resemble to a certain extent the characteristics of the orangutans living today , which is why the genus Lufengpithecus is classified in the subfamily of the Ponginae and as a sister group of the genera Pongo (= orangutans), Sivapithecus and Ankarapithecus applies. There is probably a kinship with Meganthropus .

The genus includes the following species :

The independence of Lufengpithecus chiangmuanensis is controversial; it was suggested to interpret the northern Thai finds as a local variant of the species Lufengpithecus keiyuanensis .

Historical

The finds combined in the Lufengpithecus genus were originally assigned to various other genera. For example, as early as 1956, five teeth around 10 to 8 million years old were discovered in the area of ​​the Xiaolongtan coal mine of Kaiyuan and initially assigned to the genus Dryopithecus as Dryopithecus keiyuanensis , but later as Ramapithecus keiyuanensis to the genus Ramapithecus . In 1987 they were listed as an independent genus and since then have been referred to as Lufengpithecus keiyuanensis ; some finds had previously been referred to as Sivapithecus keiyuanensis .

For a long time, the variety of names for the finds from Shihuiba that had been recovered since 1975 and dated to an age of 9 to 8 million years was similarly confusing; The same applies to the around 9 million year old finds from the Yuanmou Basin, discovered since 1986, for which the names Homo habilis zhupengensis , Homo erectus zhupengensis and Homo orientalis were suggested in 1987 .

The now common, clear assignment of the finds from Yunnan to three species of a genus goes back to a review published by Terry Harrison in 2002 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Wu Rukang : A revision of the classification of the Lufeng great apes. In: Acta Anthropologica Sinica. Volume 6, 1987, pp. 265-271
  2. ^ David R. Begun : Fossil record of Miocene Hominoids. In: Winfried Henke , Ian Tattersall (Eds.): Handbook of Paleoanthropology. Springer Verlag, Berlin 2007, p. 924, ISBN 978-3-540-32474-4
  3. ↑ Yaowalak Chaimanee et al: A Middle Miocene hominoid from Thailand and orangutan origins. In: Nature . Volume 422, 2003, pp. 61-65, doi : 10.1038 / nature01449 .
    In this study, the age of the finds is estimated to be 13.5 to 10 million years. Later dates (see Martin Pickford et al.) Showed 12 to 11 million years.
  4. ^ David R. Begun: Fossil record of Miocene Hominoids , p. 952
  5. ↑ Martin Pickford et al: Age and taxonomic status of the Chiang Muan (Thailand) hominoids. In: Comptes Rendus Palevol. Volume 3, No. 1, 2004, pp. 65-75, doi : 10.1016 / j.crpv.2003.09.029
  6. ↑ Terry Harrison et al: On the systematic status of the late Neogene hominoids from Yunnan Province, China. In: Journal of Human Evolution. Volume 43, 2002, pp. 207–227, doi : 10.1006 / jhev.2002.0570
    The historical data and names are also taken from this review.