Proconsul (primate)

See also: Proconsul

Proconsul is a extinct kind about the Primate S from which different Espèce S lived in Africa with the Miocène lower and average (from 23 to 14 million years before the present approximately).

The name of Proconsul (“before Consul”) would have been chooses by his discoverer, Arthur Tindell Hopwood, by reference to a erudite Chimpanzé named Consul which appeared in a played comedy with London in the years 1930. Other sources indicate that the chimpanzee Consul was a boarder of the zoo of London.

Characteristics

The Proconsuls had already characteristics specific to the Hominoidea e and thus count among the first known kinds of this super-family. Thus, they did not have already any more a tail, the volume of their brain relatively large (was compared with that of the Gibbon S) and they had long arms. Arboricolous, they were to move while walking on above branches without suspending itself with those. Their teeth let suppose that they nourished primarily fruits, but they probably supplemented their food with small animals.

Phylogenetic position

The exact position of the Proconsul kind in the family tree of the primates makes the subject of debate. Formerly, he was regarded as an ancestor of the current anthropoïdes; today, one rather sees in him a parallel branch, even if certain authors continue to regard it as a “Missing link”, one of the ancestors common to the men and the large current monkeys.

Species

Four distinct species were defined. They are characterized clearly by the size:

  • Proconsul africanus did not have a tail and moved in the trees using its four members. Its weight is estimated at 18 kg. He lived the wet high forests.

  • Proconsul heseloni resembled P. africanus and some regard it as an alternative of the same species. He lived the clear forests with the formed underwood of bushes.
  • Proconsul nyanzae had the same type of habitat but was much larger, with a weight estimated at 28 kg, and had a muzzle more lengthened than the other species.
  • Proconsul major was largest, with a going weight from 50 to 75 kg. He lived the wet high forests like P. africanus . The fossils allotted to this species are sometimes classified within the kind Dryopithecus.

See too

External bond

  • different the '' Proconsulidae '' and their inventors

Reference

  • At the origins of humanity , vol. 1, Y. Coppens and P. Picq (to dir.), Beech, (2001), ISBN 2-213-60369-3
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