''Theropithecus'' is a genus of primates in the family

Cercopithecidae Old World monkeys are primates in the family (biology), family Cercopithecidae (). Twenty-four genus, genera and 138 species are recognized, making it the largest primate family. Old World monkey genera include baboons (genus ''Papio''), red colo ...

. It contains a single living species, the

gelada The gelada (''Theropithecus gelada'', , ), sometimes called the bleeding-heart monkey or the gelada baboon, is a species of Old World monkey found only in the Ethiopian Highlands, living at elevations of above sea level. It is the only living me ...

(''Theropithecus gelada''), native to the

Ethiopian Highlands The Ethiopian Highlands (also called the Abyssinian Highlands) is a rugged mass of mountains in Ethiopia in Northeast Africa. It forms the largest continuous area of its elevation in the continent, with little of its surface falling below , whil ...

. Additional species are known from fossils, including: * ''

Theropithecus brumpti ''Theropithecus brumpti'' was a large terrestrial monkey that lived in the mid to late Pliocene. It is an extinct species of papionin. This fossil primate is mostly known from skulls and mandibles found in Pliocene deposits excavated in the S ...

''Getahun, D. A., Delson, E., & Seyoum, C. M. (2023). A review of Theropithecus oswaldi with the proposal of a new subspecies. Journal of human evolution, 180, 103373. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2023.103373 * ''

Theropithecus darti ''Theropithecus darti'' is an extinct species of ''Theropithecus'' from the middle to late Pliocene of Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 mil ...

'' * ''

Theropithecus oswaldi ''Theropithecus oswaldi'' is an extinct species of '' Theropithecus'' from the early to middle Pleistocene of Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Africa, Spain, Morocco, and Algeria. The species went extinct in South Africa around 1 million years ag ...

'' The earliest remains probably belonging to the genus are from

Kanapoi Kanapoi is a paleontological site in the Kenyan Rift Valley, to the southwest of Lake Turkana. Fossils were first found at Kanapoi in the 1960s by a Harvard expedition, and later by expeditions from the National Museums of Kenya. Fossils at Kanapo ...

, Kenya, dating to the early Pliocene, around 4.1-4.2 million years ago. Although most remains are known from Africa, during the

Early Pleistocene The Early Pleistocene is an unofficial epoch (geology), sub-epoch in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, representing the earliest division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. It is currently esti ...

the genus had a broader distribution ranging from southern Europe, including Spain and possibly Italy, to the Indian subcontinent.

References

{{Authority control Papionini Primate genera Mammal genera with one living species Taxa named by Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire Taxa described in 1843