Micropithecus clarki
| Micropithecus clarki | ||||||||||||
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| early Miocene | ||||||||||||
| 19 to 17 million years | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Micropithecus clarki | ||||||||||||
| Fleagle & Simons , 1978 | ||||||||||||
Micropithecus clarki is an extinct species of primates from the genus Micropithecus thatoccurredin East Africa 19 to 17 million years ago - during the early Miocene . Micropithecus clarki is the type species of the genus Micropithecus , both were scientifically described for the first time in 1978.
In 1989 a second species was assigned to the genus Micropithecus , Micropithecus leakeyorum .
Naming
Micropithecus is an artificial word . The name of the genus is derived from the Greek words μικρός ( ancient Greek spoken mikrós , "small") and πίθηκος (pronounced píthēkos , "monkey"). The epithet clarki honors the British anatomist , primatologist and paleoanthropologist Wilfrid Le Gros Clark (1895–1971). Micropithecus clarki means "Clark's little monkey" and refers to the fact that the fossils of this genus are among the smallest fossil or recent species of the human primates ever discovered .
Initial description
The holotype of Micropithecus clarki is an approximately 19 to 17 million year old upper jaw with largely preserved palate bones and remains of bones of the face (archive number UMP 64-02; UMP = Uganda Museum of Paleontology). In the upper jaw, three large left molars (M1 - M3) as well as a premolar and three large molars (M1 - M3) on the right side have been preserved . In addition, around 20 individually found teeth, a lower jaw fragment and fragments of a skullcap from the same site were added to the holotype as paratypes , which, however, were not found in the same layer as the fossil UMP 64-02 and had previously been attributed to other small species.
In the first description , Micropithecus clarki was delimited from Limnopithecus , Dendropithecus , Dryopithecus and Pliopithecus , in particular due to the characteristics of its molars and its short stature , with the greatest possible relationship to Pliopithecus . Furthermore, it was pointed out in the first description that the morphology of the face most closely resembles the gibbons living today , but has a relatively wide snout and a relatively wide nasal region. The head-trunk length corresponds roughly to the white- forehead capuchin monkey, which is only around 35 centimeters tall, and is slightly smaller than that of the fossil Aeolopithecus chirobates (Simons, 1965).
Diet
The surviving remains of Micropithecus clarki show numerous original characteristics of the Old World monkeys , but also various more recent characteristics , such as relatively small molars in relation to the jawbone and very large incisors compared to the molars - characteristics that suggest a fruit-rich diet close. Possible was this diet since before about 19 million years ago, today's Uganda and western Kenya by forests were mostly covered, encouraged by a warm and humid tropical - climate .
literature
- Terry Harrison : A Taxonomic Revision of the Small Catarrhine Primates from the Early Miocene of East Africa. In: Folia Primatologica. Volume 50, No. 1-2, 1988, pp. 59-108, doi: 10.1159 / 000156334 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ John G. Fleagle and Elwyn L. Simons : Micropithecus clarki, a small ape from the Miocene of Uganda. In: American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Volume 49, No. 4, 1978, pp. 427-440, doi: 10.1002 / ajpa.1330490402 .
- ^ A b Terry Harrison : A new species of Micropithecus from the middle Miocene of Kenya. In: Journal of Human Evolution . Volume 18, No. 6, 1989, pp. 537-557, doi: 10.1016 / 0047-2484 (89) 90017-1 .
- ^ Elwyn L. Simons: New Fossil Apes from Egypt and the Initial Differentiation of Hominoidea. In: Nature . Volume 205, 1965, pp. 135-139, doi: 10.1038 / 205135a0 .
- ^ Terry Harrison, New finds of small fossil apes from the Miocene locality at Koru in Kenya. In: Journal of Human Evolution. Volume 10, No. 2, 1981, pp. 129-137, doi: 10.1016 / S0047-2484 (81) 80010-3 .