Late Miocene

Last updated
System/
Period
Series/
Epoch
Stage/
Age
Age (Ma)
Quaternary Pleistocene Gelasian younger
Neogene Pliocene Piacenzian 2.583.600
Zanclean 3.6005.333
Miocene Messinian 5.3337.246
Tortonian 7.24611.63
Serravallian 11.6313.82
Langhian 13.8215.97
Burdigalian 15.9720.44
Aquitanian 20.4423.03
Paleogene Oligocene Chattian older
Subdivision of the Neogene Period
according to the ICS, as of 2017 [1]

The Late Miocene (also known as Upper Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene Epoch made up of two stages. The Tortonian and Messinian stages comprise the Late Miocene sub-epoch, which lasted from 11.63 Ma (million years ago) to 5.333 Ma.

Contents

The evolution of homo

The gibbons (family Hylobatidae) and orangutans (genus Pongo) are the first groups to split from the line leading to the hominins, including humans, then gorillas (genus Gorilla), and finally chimpanzees and bonobos (genus Pan ). The splitting date between hominin and chimpanzee lineages is placed by some between 4 and 8 million years ago, that is, during the Late Miocene. [2] [3] [4] [5]

Related Research Articles

<i>Ardipithecus</i> Extinct genus of hominins

Ardipithecus is a genus of an extinct hominine that lived during the Late Miocene and Early Pliocene epochs in the Afar Depression, Ethiopia. Originally described as one of the earliest ancestors of humans after they diverged from the chimpanzees, the relation of this genus to human ancestors and whether it is a hominin is now a matter of debate. Two fossil species are described in the literature: A. ramidus, which lived about 4.4 million years ago during the early Pliocene, and A. kadabba, dated to approximately 5.6 million years ago. Initial behavioral analysis indicated that Ardipithecus could be very similar to chimpanzees, however more recent analysis based on canine size and lack of canine sexual dimorphism indicates that Ardipithecus was characterised by reduced aggression, and that they more closely resemble bonobos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human evolution</span> Evolutionary process leading to anatomically modern humans

Human evolution is the evolutionary process within the history of primates that led to the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species of the hominid family that includes all the great apes. This process involved the gradual development of traits such as human bipedalism, dexterity, and complex language, as well as interbreeding with other hominins, indicating that human evolution was not linear but weblike. The study of the origins of humans involves several scientific disciplines, including physical and evolutionary anthropology, paleontology, and genetics; the field is also known by the terms anthropogeny, anthropogenesis, and anthropogony.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homininae</span> Subfamily of mammals

Homininae, is a subfamily of the family Hominidae (hominids). This subfamily includes two tribes, Hominini and Gorillini, both having extant species as well as extinct species.

<i>Orrorin</i> Postulated early hominin discovered in Kenya

Orrorin is an extinct genus of primate within Homininae from the Miocene Lukeino Formation and Pliocene Mabaget Formation, both of Kenya.

<i>Sahelanthropus</i> Extinct hominid from Miocene Africa

Sahelanthropus is an extinct genus of hominid dated to about 7 million years ago during the Late Miocene. The type species, Sahelanthropus tchadensis, was first announced in 2002, based mainly on a partial cranium, nicknamed Toumaï, discovered in northern Chad.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ape</span> Branch of primates

Apes are a clade of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, which together with its sister group Cercopithecidae form the catarrhine clade, cladistically making them monkeys. Apes do not have tails due to a mutation of the TBXT gene. In traditional and non-scientific use, the term ape can include tailless primates taxonomically considered Cercopithecidae, and is thus not equivalent to the scientific taxon Hominoidea. There are two extant branches of the superfamily Hominoidea: the gibbons, or lesser apes; and the hominids, or great apes.

<i>Sivapithecus</i> Genus of extinct Asian ape

Sivapithecus is a genus of extinct apes. Fossil remains of animals now assigned to this genus, dated from 12.2 million years old in the Miocene, have been found since the 19th century in the Sivalik Hills of the Indian subcontinent as well as in Kutch. Any one of the species in this genus may have been the ancestor to the modern orangutans.

<i>Proconsul</i> (mammal) Extinct genus of primates

Proconsul is an extinct genus of primates that existed from 21 to 17 million years ago during the Miocene epoch. Fossil remains are present in Eastern Africa, including Kenya and Uganda. Four species have been classified to date: P. africanus, P. gitongai, P. major and P. meswae. The four species differ mainly in body size. Environmental reconstructions for the Early Miocene Proconsul sites are still tentative and range from forested environments to more open, arid grasslands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knuckle-walking</span> Form of quadrupedal walking using the knuckles

Knuckle-walking is a form of quadrupedal walking in which the forelimbs hold the fingers in a partially flexed posture that allows body weight to press down on the ground through the knuckles. Gorillas and chimpanzees use this style of locomotion, as do anteaters and platypuses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hominini</span> Tribe of mammals

The Hominini (hominins) form a taxonomic tribe of the subfamily Homininae (hominines). They comprise two extant genera: Homo (humans) and Pan, but in standard usage exclude the genus Gorilla (gorillas), which is grouped separately within subfamily Homininae.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australopithecine</span> Extinct subtribe of the Hominini tribe, and members of the human clade

The australopithecines, formally Australopithecina or Hominina, are generally any species in the related genera of Australopithecus and Paranthropus. It may also include members of Kenyanthropus, Ardipithecus, and Praeanthropus. The term comes from a former classification as members of a distinct subfamily, the Australopithecinae. They are now classified within the Australopithecina subtribe of the Hominini tribe. All these related species are now sometimes collectively termed australopithecines, australopiths or homininans. They are the extinct, close relatives of modern humans and, together with the extant genus Homo, comprise the human clade. Members of the human clade, i.e. the Hominini after the split from the chimpanzees, are now called Hominina.

Human evolutionary genetics studies how one human genome differs from another human genome, the evolutionary past that gave rise to the human genome, and its current effects. Differences between genomes have anthropological, medical, historical and forensic implications and applications. Genetic data can provide important insights into human evolution.

<i>Samburupithecus</i> Extinct genus of primate from Miocene Kenya

Samburupithecus is an extinct primate that lived in Kenya during the middle to late Miocene. The one species in this genus, Samburupithecus kiptalami, is known only from a maxilla fragment dated to 9.5 million years ago discovered in 1982 and formally described by Ishida & Pickford 1997. The type specimen KNM-SH 8531 was discovered by the Joint Japan-Kenya Expedition at the SH22 fossil site in the Samburu District, a locality where several other researchers found no ape fossils.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hominidae</span> Family of primates

The Hominidae, whose members are known as the great apes or hominids, are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: Pongo ; Gorilla ; Pan ; and Homo, of which only modern humans remain.

The chimpanzee–human last common ancestor (CHLCA) is the last common ancestor shared by the extant Homo (human) and Pan genera of Hominini. Estimates of the divergence date vary widely from thirteen to five million years ago.

<i>Graecopithecus</i> Extinct genus of hominids

Graecopithecus is an extinct genus of hominid that lived in southeast Europe during the late Miocene around 7.2 million years ago. Originally identified by a single lower jaw bone bearing teeth found in Pyrgos Vasilissis, Athens, Greece, in 1944, other teeth were discovered from Azmaka quarry in Bulgaria in 2012. With only little and badly preserved materials to reveal its nature, it is considered as "the most poorly known European Miocene hominoids." The creature was popularly nicknamed 'El Graeco' by scientists.

<i>Hispanopithecus</i> Genus of apes from Miocene Europe

Hispanopithecus is a genus of apes that inhabited Europe during the Miocene epoch. It was first identified in a 1944 paper by J. F. Villalta and M. Crusafont in Notas y Comunicaciones del Instituto Geologico y Minero de España. Anthropologists disagree as to whether Hispanopithecus belongs to the subfamily Ponginae or Homininae.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evolution of primates</span> Origin and diversification of primates through geologic time

The evolutionary history of the primates can be traced back 57-90 million years. One of the oldest known primate-like mammal species, Plesiadapis, came from North America; another, Archicebus, came from China. Other similar basal primates were widespread in Eurasia and Africa during the tropical conditions of the Paleocene and Eocene. Purgatorius is the genus of the four extinct species believed to be the earliest example of a primate or a proto-primate, a primatomorph precursor to the Plesiadapiformes, dating to as old as 66 million years ago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gibbon–human last common ancestor</span>

The phylogenetic split of the superfamily Hominoidea (apes) into the Hylobatidae (gibbons) and Hominidae families is dated to the early Miocene, roughly 20 to 16 million years ago.

<i>Otavipithecus</i> Extinct species of ape

Otavipithecus namibiensis is an extinct species of ape from the Miocene of Namibia. The fossils were discovered at the Berg Aukas mines in the foothills of the Otavi mountains, hence the generic name. The species was described in 1992 by Glenn Conroy and colleagues, and was at the time the only non-hominin fossil ape known from Southern Africa. The scientists noted that the surrounding area of the discovered specimen included fauna dated at "about 13 ± 1 Myr". The fossils consist of part of the lower jawbone with molars, a partial frontal bone, a heavily damaged ulna, one vertebra and a partial finger bone.

References

  1. "ICS Timescale Chart". stratigraphy.org.
  2. Dawkins, Richard (2004). The ancestor's tale : a pilgrimage to the dawn of evolution. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN   0-618-00583-8. OCLC   56617123.
  3. "Find Time of Divergence: Hominidae versus Hylobatidae". TimeTree . Archived from the original on 2015-04-18. Retrieved April 18, 2015.
  4. Ruvolo, M. (October 1997). "Genetic Diversity in Hominoid Primates". Annual Review of Anthropology. 26: 515–540. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.26.1.515. ISSN   0084-6570.
  5. Ruvolo, M (March 1997). "Molecular Phylogeny of the Hominoids: Inferences from Multiple Independent DNA Sequence Data Sets". Molecular Biology and Evolution. 14 (3): 248–265. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a025761 . ISSN   0737-4038. PMID   9066793.