The

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

''Apidium'' (from Latin, a diminutive of the Egyptian bull god,

Apis Apis or APIS may refer to: * Apis (deity), an ancient Egyptian god * Apis (Greek mythology), several different figures in Greek mythology * Apis (city), an ancient seaport town on the northern coast of Africa **Kom el-Hisn, a different Egyptian ci ...

, as the first fossils were thought to be from a type of a cow) is that of at least three extinct

primate Primates are a diverse order (biology), order of mammals. They are divided into the Strepsirrhini, strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the Haplorhini, haplorhines, which include the Tarsiiformes, tarsiers and ...

s living in the early

Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but ...

, from 30 to 28 million years ago. ''Apidium'' fossils are common in the

Fayoum Faiyum ( ar, الفيوم ' , borrowed from cop, ̀Ⲫⲓⲟⲙ or Ⲫⲓⲱⲙ ' from egy, pꜣ ym "the Sea, Lake") is a city in Middle Egypt. Located southwest of Cairo, in the Faiyum Oasis, it is the capital of the modern Faiyu ...

deposits of

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Med ...

. Fossils of the earlier species, ''Apidium moustafai'', are rare; fossils of the later species ''Apidium phiomense'' are fairly common. ''Apidium'' and its fellow members of the

Parapithecidae Parapithecidae is an extinct family of primates which lived in the Eocene and Oligocene periods in Egypt. Eocene fossils from Myanmar are sometimes included in the family in addition. They showed certain similarities in dentition to Condylarthra, ...

family are stem anthropoids that possess all the hallmarks of modern

Anthropoidea The simians, anthropoids, or higher primates are an infraorder (Simiiformes ) of primates containing all animals traditionally called monkeys and apes. More precisely, they consist of the parvorders New World monkeys (Platyrrhini) and Catarrh ...

. Their ancestry is closely tied to the Eocene Asian group

Eosimiidae Eosimiidae is the possible family of extinct primates believed to be the earliest simians. Taxonomy When they were discovered the possibility that Eosimians were outside and ancestral to Simians was considered (Culotta 1992), but subsequent w ...

Age

''Apidium'' fossils were originally thought to be between 35.4 and 33.3 million years old, based on initial analysis of the

Jebel Qatrani Formation The Jebel Qatrani Formation (also Gebel Qatrani) is a palaeontological and geologic formation located in the Faiyum Governorate of central Egypt. Conformably overlying the Qasr el Sagha Formation. It is exposed namely between the Jebel Qat ...

in which they were found. However, analysis by Erik Seiffert in 2006 concluded that the age of the Jebel Qatrani Formation should be revised. His assessment of more recent evidence indicates an age of between 30.2 and 29.5 million years ago, wholly within the

Rupelian The Rupelian is, in the geologic timescale, the older of two ages or the lower of two stages of the Oligocene Epoch/ Series. It spans the time between . It is preceded by the Priabonian Stage (part of the Eocene) and is followed by the Chattian ...

(early

)

epoch In chronology and periodization, an epoch or reference epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era. The "epoch" serves as a reference point from which time is measured. The moment of epoch is usually decided by ...

Behaviour

The ''Apidium'' species were well adapted to life in what once were the tropical forests of North Africa. They lived in trees and apparently moved on top of tree limbs by a combination of quadrupedalism and leaping, much as do living squirrel monkeys of the genus ''Saimiri''. These primates appear to have been frugivorous and diurnal, with keen eyesight. Male ''Apidium'' were bigger than the females, which, by comparing them with living primates, suggests that they probably lived in groups, where a small number of males would have had control over several females. The males had large canine teeth.

References

External links

Mikko's Phylogeny archiveBBC's Nature Fact FilesBritannica EncyclopediaPaleobiology Database
{{Taxonbar, from=Q773484 Eocene primates Oligocene primates Priabonian genus first appearances Rupelian genus extinctions Eocene mammals of Africa Oligocene mammals of Africa Taxa named by Henry Fairfield Osborn Fossil taxa described in 1908