|
Proconsul nyanzae is a fossil primate discovered several times. It was first named by Wilfrid Le Gros Clark and Louis Leakey in 1950. That year it was also described by Clark & Leakey as Sivapithecus africanus and in 1967 by Leakey as Kenyapithecus africanus. A more recent discovery by Ward et al. in 1999 • may cause it to be renamed to Equatorius africanus, which would move it to the Afropithecinae subfamily with Afropithecus turkanensis. The 1967 Leakey discovery was made in East Africa and was dated to the middle Miocene. As Kenyapithecus africanus, it is often regarded as being part of the great ape and human groups but cannot be linked directly to any one of the living hominoids. Also, Kenyapithecus africanus is the earliest known ape to occasionally leave the treetops.
Morphology Proconsul nyanzae had a dental formula of 2:1:2:3 on both the upper and lower jaw. The upper premolars of Proconsul nyanzae were large This species had a relatively thick enamel on the molars. The mandible of this species was relatively robust. Proconsul nyanzae had an average body mass of about 30.0 kilograms. Range Proconsul nyanzae lived on the continent of Africa and the fossils were found in areas that suggest it lived in a dry, open woodland environment. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
--> | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
| |