Prohylobates simonsi
| Prohylobates simonsi | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| early Miocene ( Burdigalium ) | ||||||||||||
| approx. 17-15 million years | ||||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Prohylobates simonsi | ||||||||||||
| Delson , 1979 | ||||||||||||
Prohylobates simonsi is an extinct species of monkey relatives (Cercopithecidae) from the genus Prohylobates , whichoccurredin Libya during the early Miocene . The only fossil to datewas discovered in the Gebel Zelten region- around 15 kilometers west of the village of Zelten and 6 kilometers east of Ora - in northern central Libya. On the basis of biostratigraphic analyzes, it wasdated to an age of around 18 million yearsin the first description of Prohylobates simonsi , which was later corrected to 17 to 15 million years.
Naming
The name Prohylobates indicates that the genus was considered in 1918 as the forerunner of the small gibbons (Hylobates) - and thus the human instead of the monkey relatives . The epithet simonsi honors the paleontologist Elwyn L. Simons , who rearranged the genus Prohylobates in 1969 .
Initial description
According to the first description from 1979 by Eric Delson, the holotype of Prohylobates simonsi is the fragment of a lower jaw with preserved left molars M 2 and M 3 (archive number AMNH 17768). Prohylobates simonsi was after Prohylobates tandyi , whose fossil was discovered in the Al-Mughra depression in Egypt and scientifically described as early as 1918, the second species of the genus Prohylobates . The preserved teeth of Prohylobates simonsi are the only primate found from Gebel tents . They are approximately 65 percent larger than those of the Prohylobates tandyi type , and tooth M 3 is longer; otherwise the morphology of both species is almost identical.
Both species are described as small to medium-sized, "original" monkeys at the evolutionary base of the Cercopithecidae. The body weight of Prohylobates simonsi could have been 25 kg, that of Prohylobates tandyi 7 kg. From the structure of their tooth crowns it can be deduced that they were predominantly fruit-eaters with a certain proportion of harder leaves in their diet. The possibility that the different tooth size is not a species characteristic but an expression of a sexual dimorphism was discussed in the first description, however, with reference to approximately equally large fossils of Prohylobates tandyi described as male and female, it was described as unlikely.
The lower jaw, ascribed to Prohylobates simonsi , was discovered in 1967 by RM Eckert, an employee of the Mobil Oil Company (today: ExxonMobil ) and kept in the American Museum of Natural History as a presumed fossil of an ancestor of pigs or a related group of ungulates . It was not until a decade later that the paleontologist Martin Pickford - who later became known as the discoverer of the first fossils of Orrorin - noticed that this lower jaw could be the remains of a primate; then he made Eric Delson aware of this find.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Eric Delson : Prohylobates (Primates) from the Early Miocene of Libya: A new species and its implications for cercopithecid origins. In: Géobios. Volume 12, No. 5, 1979, pp. 725-733, doi: 10.1016 / S0016-6995 (79) 80099-6 , full text (PDF; 223 kB)
- ↑ Ellen R. Miller and Elwyn L. Simons: Relationships between the mammalian fauna from Wadi Moghara, Qattara Depression, Egypt, and other Early Miocene faunas .. In: Proceedings of the Geological Survey of Egypt Centennial Conference , 1996, p. 547– 580
- ^ Elwyn L. Simons: Miocene Monkey (Prohylobates) from Northern Egypt. In: Nature . Volume 223, 1969, pp. 687-689, doi: 10.1038 / 223687a0
- ↑ René Fourtau: Contribution à l'Étude of Vertébrés Miocènes de l'Egypte. Cairo, Survey Department, 1918
- ↑ John G. Fleagle : Primate Adaptation and Evolution. Elsevier / Academic Press, 2nd edition 1998, p. 492, ISBN 978-0122603419