Paracolobus

Paracolobus
	Paracolobus chemeroni
Temporal occurrence
	early Pleistocene to Old Pleistocene
	2.0 to 1.89 million years
Locations
	Kapthurin River Valley ( Baringo County , Kenya ); Turkana Lake (Kenya); Omo River Valley ( Ethiopia );
Systematics
	Primates (Primates)
	Monkey (anthropoidea)
	Old World Monkey (Catarrhini)
	Common monkeys and colobus monkeys (Colobinae)
	Paracolobus
Scientific name
	Paracolobus
	REF Leakey , 1969
species
	Paracolobus chemeroni; Paracolobus mutiwa;

Paracolobus is an extinct genus of primates that was foundin East Africa during the early Pleistocene . In Kenya , in the Kapthurin River Valley ( Baringo County ) and east of Lake Turkana, as well as in Ethiopia , in the valley of the Omo River, fossils associated with this genus originate from sedimentary layers that are around 1.9 to 2.0 million years old are old. Paracolobus is considered a relative of the recent slipper and colobus monkeys .

Naming

Paracolobus is an artificial word . The name of the genus is derived from the Greek word παρά ( pronounced pára in ancient Greek : "next to, deviating from") and also refers to morphological similarities between features of the fossils and the features of today's species of black and white colobus monkeys (genus Colobus ).

The epithet of the type species first described by Richard Leakey in 1969 , Paracolobus chemeroni , refers to the place where it was found, the Chemeron Formation in the Kapthurin river valley. The epithet of the second species of the genus, named by Meave Leakey in 1982 , Paracolobus mutiwa , honors the Kenyan Nzube Mutiwa, who discovered numerous fossils of the colobus and colobus monkeys in the Meave Leakey team.

Initial descriptions

As a holotype of the genus and at the same time the type species Paracolobus chemeroni in the first description by Richard Leakey, a skull with a broken rear area with associated lower jaw and a large number of bones from the area below the skull (archive number KNM-BC 3), from the site JM91 (90) had been recovered.

The holotype of Paracolobus mutiwa is a partially dentate female maxilla with a preserved glabella (archive number KNM-ER 3843). As paratypes of the species in the initial description by Meave Leakey u were. a. added several upper and lower jaw fragments as well as 46 individually found teeth that were recovered in the Omo river valley.

features

Paracolobus was significantly larger than the species of the genus Colobus living today . The individuals of the genus presumably lived mainly in trees, but were probably more frequent than Rhinocolobus on the ground, which - like Cercopithecoides kimeui - lived at approximately the same time and in the same area as Paracolobus .

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b Meave Leakey : Extinct Large Colobines From thr Plio-Pleistocene of Africa. In: American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Volume 58, No. 2, 1982, pp. 153-172, doi: 10.1002 / ajpa.1330580207
^ Richard Leakey : New Cercopithecoidea from the Chemeron Beds, Lake Baringo, Kenya. In: Louis Leakey (Ed.): Fossil Vertebrates of Africa. Volume 1. Academic Press, London and New York 1969, pp. 53-73, ISBN 978-0-12440401-4 .

[ML-1] A ^b Meave Leakey : Extinct Large Colobines From thr Plio-Pleistocene of Africa. In: American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Volume 58, No. 2, 1982, pp. 153-172, doi: 10.1002 / ajpa.1330580207

[2] Richard Leakey : New Cercopithecoidea from the Chemeron Beds, Lake Baringo, Kenya. In: Louis Leakey (Ed.): Fossil Vertebrates of Africa. Volume 1. Academic Press, London and New York 1969, pp. 53-73, ISBN 978-0-12440401-4 .