IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v388y1997i6640d10.1038_41078.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Earliest known Old World monkey skull

Author

Listed:
  • Brenda R. Benefit

    (Southern Illinois University)

  • Monte L. McCrossin

    (Southern Illinois University)

Abstract

Similarities of the skull are commonly used to support hypotheses of ancestor–descendant relationships between fossil and living ape genera, especially between the late Miocene apes Sivapithecus and Dryopithecus from Eurasia and the living orang-utan (Pongo) from Borneo and Sumatra1,2,3,4. Yet determining whether craniofacial traits shared by extant and Miocene apes are primitive or derived is severely hampered by the rarity of well-preserved fossil crania, particularly of early members of their closest outgroup, the Old World monkeys (Cercopithecoidea). The discovery of a complete and undistorted skull of Victoriapithecus at middle Miocene deposits from Maboko Island, Kenya, provides evidence of intact cranial-vault and basicranial morphology, brain size and craniofacial hafting for a primate from between 32 and 7 million years ago. Victoriapithecus represents a branch of Old World monkey that is intermediate between extant cercopithecids (Colobinae and Cercopithecinae) and the common ancestor they shared with apes (Hominoidea)5,6,7,8. The skull preserves traits widely thought to be derived for extant and fossil members of a proposed Sivapithecus/Pongo clade, but which now appear to be primitive features of ancestral Old World higher primates in general.

Suggested Citation

  • Brenda R. Benefit & Monte L. McCrossin, 1997. "Earliest known Old World monkey skull," Nature, Nature, vol. 388(6640), pages 368-371, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:388:y:1997:i:6640:d:10.1038_41078
    DOI: 10.1038/41078
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/41078
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/41078?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Florian Bouchet & Clément Zanolli & Alessandro Urciuoli & Sergio Almécija & Josep Fortuny & Josep M. Robles & Amélie Beaudet & Salvador Moyà-Solà & David M. Alba, 2024. "The Miocene primate Pliobates is a pliopithecoid," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-14, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:388:y:1997:i:6640:d:10.1038_41078. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.