Propliopithecoidea is a superfamily of
catarrhine primate
Primates is an order (biology), order of mammals, which is further divided into the Strepsirrhini, strepsirrhines, which include lemurs, galagos, and Lorisidae, lorisids; and the Haplorhini, haplorhines, which include Tarsiiformes, tarsiers a ...
s that inhabited Africa and the
Arabian Peninsula
The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world.
Geographically, the ...
during the
Early Oligocene
The Rupelian is, in the geologic timescale, the older of two age (geology), ages or the lower of two stage (stratigraphy), stages of the Oligocene epoch (geology), Epoch/series (stratigraphy), Series. It spans the time between . It is preceded b ...
about 32 to 29 million years ago. Fossils have been found in
Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
,
Oman
Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman, is a country located on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in West Asia and the Middle East. It shares land borders with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Oman’s coastline ...
and
Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...
. They are one of the earliest known families of catarrhines.
They have a number of features in common with extant catarrhines, but also features that are primitive and not found in later catarrhine families.
There are five species, which are close enough to be often viewed as all belonging to a single genus. They have a body mass of , similar in size to modern
howler monkeys.
Species
''
Propliopithecus ankelae''
''Propliopithecus chirobates''
''Propliopithecus haeckeli''
''Propliopithecus markgrafi'' aka ''Moeripithecus markgrafi''
''Propliopithecus zeuxis'' aka ''
Aegyptopithecus zeuxis''
Classification
Szalay & Delson (1979), Andrews (1985), Harrison (1987) and Begun (2012) argued that the high degree of similarity means that all the propliopithecoids should be placed in a single genus.
Herbert Thomas (1991), following examination of new material in Oman, argued for ''Moeripithecus markgrafi'', citing 'striking differences in morphology' compared to ''P. haeckeli''.
Seiffert (2006) suggested that the fossils examined by Thomas might be better classified as ''P. ankeli''.
Seiffert et al. (2010) argued for three genera - ''
Aegyptopithecus'', ''Moeripithecus'' and ''
Propliopithecus''
An additional fossil, an unnamed propliopithecid from
Taqah, appears more basal, and as such not be part of a ''Propliopithecus'' sensu stricto clade.''
References
Prehistoric primates
Catarrhini
Mammal superfamilies
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