Ouranopithecus
| Ouranopithecus | ||||||||||||
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Skull fragment with upper jaw |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| late Miocene ( Vallesium ) | ||||||||||||
| 10.0 to 7.4 million years | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Ouranopithecus | ||||||||||||
| Bonis & Melentis , 1977 | ||||||||||||
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Ouranopithecus is an extinct genus of primates that was foundin northern Greece and eastern Turkey 10 to 7 million years ago during the late Miocene . The exact classification of the genus in the family tree of primates is unclear, some authors it is the tribe dryopithecini attributed.
Naming
Ouranopithecus is an artificial word . The name of the genus is derived from ancient Greek Οὐρανός Ouranós , German 'Vault of Heaven' and Greek πίθηκος , ancient Greek. pronounced píthēkos 'monkey'. Ouranopithecus therefore means "heavenly monkey". According to note 6 of the first description , however, the name of the genus was derived "du grec 'ouranos' = pluie", i.e. from "rain", which refers to the site of the first fossil, which was found by the French excavators "Ravin de la Pluie" ( = "Rain Canyon") was named. According to this reference, the genus should therefore apparently have been called "rain monkey".
Initial description
The holotype of the genus and at the same time the type species Ouranopithecus macedoniensis is a well-preserved, almost completely dentate, juvenile mandible (archive number RPl-54) discovered in 1973 , which is found in Central Macedonia, in the lower Axios Valley , about 25 kilometers west of Thessaloniki and four kilometers east the community Vathylakkos (Βαθύλακκος) was recovered from the Ravin de la pluie site . In the first description published in 1974 , however, the fossil was still assigned as a holotype of the species Dryopithecus macedoniensis , which was newly added to the genus Dryopithecus , and was mainly distinguished from Dryopithecus fontani . Only after the discovery of further fossils was the naming revised in 1977 in favor of Ouranopithecus macedoniensis .
Related species
In 2007, finds from Turkey on Ouranopithecus turkae were made and thus a second species of the genus was introduced into the specialist literature.
Some of the specialist authors are of the opinion that Ouranopithecus macedoniensis is the northern Greek variant of Graecopithecus freybergi discovered in southern Greece .
After the genus Ouranopithecus was first described at the end of the 1970s, some researchers moved it to the Sivapithecus family and thus to the orangutan family .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Louis de Bonis, Jean Melentis: Un nouveau genre de Primate hominoïde dans le Vallésien [Miocène supérieur] de Macédoine. In: Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, Paris. Volume 284, No. 15 [Série D], 1977, p. 1396, note 6.
- ↑ Louis de Bonis , Geneviève Bouvrain, Denis Geraads and Jean Melentis: Première découverte d'un Primate hominoïde dans le Miocène supérieur de Macédoine (Grèce). In: Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des sciences Paris. Volume 278, Series D, 1974, pp. 3063-3066
- ↑ Louis de Bonis, Jean Melentis: Un nouveau genre de Primate hominoïde dans le Vallésien (Miocène supérieur) de Macédoine. In: Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, Paris. Volume 284, No. 15 (Series D), 1977, pp. 1393-1396
- ↑ George D. Koufos, Louis de Bonis: The Late Miocene hominoids Ouranopithecus and Graecopithecus. Implications about their relationships and taxonomy. In: Annales de Paléontologie. Volume 91, No. 3, 2005, pp. 227-240, doi: 10.1016 / j.annpal.2005.05.001
- ^ David W. Cameron: The taxonomic status of Graecopithecus. In: Primates. Volume 38, No. 3, 1997, pp. 293-302, doi: 10.1007 / BF02381616
- ^ P. Andrews, I. Tekkaya: A revision of the Turkish Miocene hominoid Sivapithecus meteai. In: Palaeontology. Volume 23, 1980, pp. 85–95, full text (PDF)