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.
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.
Mary Douglas Leakey, FBA was a British paleoanthropologist who discovered the first fossilised Proconsul skull, an extinct ape which is now believed to be ancestral to humans. She also discovered the robust Zinjanthropus skull at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, eastern Africa. For much of her career she worked with her husband, Louis Leakey, at Olduvai Gorge, where they uncovered fossils of ancient hominines and the earliest hominins, as well as the stone tools produced by the latter group. Mary Leakey developed a system for classifying the stone tools found at Olduvai. She discovered the Laetoli footprints, and at the Laetoli site she discovered hominin fossils that were more than 3.75 million years old.
Pierolapithecus catalaunicus is an extinct species of primate which lived around 12.5-13 million years ago during the Miocene in what is now Hostalets de Pierola, Catalonia, Spain. Some researchers believe that it is a candidate for common ancestor to the great ape clade, or is at least closer than any previous fossil discovery. Others suggest it being a pongine, or a dryopith. On 16 October 2023, scientists reported the facial reconstruction of the great 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.
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.
Proconsul africanus was an ape which lived from about 23 to 14 million years ago during the Miocene epoch. It was a fruit eater and its brain was larger than that of a monkey, although probably not as large as that of a modern ape.
Proconsul major, an extinct primate of the genus Proconsul, was possibly the ancestor of Afropithecus and showed hominid characteristics. It occurred during the early Miocene and was roughly, the size of a gorilla. The species previously referred to as Ugandapithecus major is now considered to be a synonym of Proconsul major. Prior to 2000 it was known as Proconsul major and some argue against the renaming.
Afropithecus is a genus of Miocene hominoid with the sole species Afropithecus turkanensis, it was excavated from a small site near Lake Turkana called Kalodirr in northern Kenya in 1986 and named by Richard Leakey and Meave Leakey. The estimated age of Afropithecus is between 16 and 18 million years old, which was determined with radiometric dating techniques and the geological studies conducted by Broschetto and Brown from the University of Utah. In total there are 46 recovered specimens from Kalodirr relating to Afropithecus consisting of cranial, mandible, dentition and post-cranial remains. The type specimen of Afropithecus turkanensis is KNM-WK 16999.
Ekembo nyanzae, originally classed as a species of Proconsul, is a species of fossil primate first discovered by Louis Leakey on Rusinga Island in 1942, which he published in Nature in 1943. It is also known by the name Dryopithecus africanus. A joint publication of Wilfrid Le Gros Clark and Louis Leakey in 1951, "The Miocene Hominoidea of East Africa", first defines Proconsul nyanzae. In 1965 Simons and Pilbeam replaced Proconsul with Dryopithecus, using the same species names.
Rusinga Island, with an elongated shape approximately 10 miles (16 km) from end to end and 3 miles (5 km) at its widest point, lies in the eastern part of Lake Victoria at the mouth of the Winam Gulf. Part of Kenya, it is linked to Mbita Point on the mainland by the new Rusinga-Mbita bridge which replaced the old causeway.
Proconsulidae is an early family of primates that lived during the Miocene epoch in Kenya, and was restricted to Africa. Members of the family have a mixture of Old World monkey and ape characteristics, so the placement in the ape superfamily Hominoidea is tentative; some scientists place Proconsulidae outside of Hominoidea in a separately superfamily Proconsuloidea, before the split of the apes and Old World monkeys.
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.
Kamoyapithecus was a primate that lived in Africa during the late Oligocene period, about 24.2-27.5 million years ago. First found in 1948 as part of a University of California, Berkeley expedition, it was at first thought to be under a form of Proconsul by C.T. Madden in 1980, but after a re-examination by Meave Leakey and associates later, the fossils were moved under a new genus Kamoyapithecus, named after the renowned fossil finder Kamoya Kimeu. The genus is represented by only one species, K. hamiltoni.
Rangwapithecus is an extinct genus of ape from the Early Miocene of Kenya. Late Miocene phalanges from Hungary have also been assigned to this genus, but were later reclassified as Dryopithecus.
Nacholapithecus kerioi was an ape that lived 14-15 million years ago during the Middle Miocene. Fossils have been found in the Nachola formation in northern Kenya. The only member of the genus Nacholapithecus, it is thought to be a key genus in early hominid evolution. Similar in body plan to Proconsul, it had a long vertebral column with six lumbar vertebrae, no tail, a narrow torso, large upper limbs with mobile shoulder joints, and long feet.
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.
The phylogenetic split of Hominidae into the subfamilies Homininae and Ponginae is dated to the middle Miocene, roughly 18 to 14 million years ago. This split is also referenced as the "orangutan–human last common ancestor" by Jeffrey H. Schwartz, professor of anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Arts and Sciences, and John Grehan, director of science at the Buffalo Museum.
Ekembo is an early ape (hominoid) genus found in 17- to 20-million-year-old sediments from the Miocene epoch. Specimens have been found at sites around the ancient Kisingiri volcano in Kenya on Rusinga Island and Mfangano Island in Lake Victoria. The name Ekembo is Suba for "ape" or "monkey".
