Maboko Island is a small island lying in the

Winam Gulf Winam Gulf is a significant extension of northeastern Lake Victoria into western Kenya. Formerly known as Kavirondo Gulf, Nyanza Gulf, and Lake Nyanza Gulf, it is a shallow inlet and is connected to the main lake by Rusinga Channel ( wide), w ...

Lake Victoria Lake Victoria is one of the African Great Lakes. With a surface area of approximately , Lake Victoria is Africa's largest lake by area, the world's largest tropical lake, and the world's second-largest fresh water lake by surface area after ...

, in

Nyanza Province Nyanza Province (; sw, Mkoa wa Nyanza) was one of Kenya's Provinces of Kenya, eight administrative provinces before the formation of the Counties of Kenya, 47 counties under the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 constitution. Six counties were organis ...

of western

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

. It is about 1.8 km long by 1 km wide. It is an important Middle

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...

paleontological Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (geology), epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes t ...

site with

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

iferous deposits that were discovered in the 1930s. The age of the deposits is estimated to be , and they are especially important for the abundance of

primate Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians (monkeys and apes, the latter including huma ...

fossils they contain.

Excavations

Miocene fossils in the

fluvial In geography and geology, fluvial processes are associated with rivers and streams and the deposits and landforms created by them. When the stream or rivers are associated with glaciers, ice sheets, or ice caps, the term glaciofluvial or fluviog ...

deposits of Maboko was first discovered by Archdeacon W.E. Owen in 1933, who started an excavation later that year which yielded a lot of vertebrate fossils. Owen's excavations continued the following two years supervised by Donald Gordon MacInnes. Then few expeditions visited the island before MacInnes returned together with

Louis Leakey Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey (7 August 1903 – 1 October 1972) was a Kenyan-British palaeoanthropologist and archaeologist whose work was important in demonstrating that humans evolved in Africa, particularly through discoveries made at Olduvai ...

in 1947. These excavations resulted in a large number of craniodental (crania and teeth) remains of a medium seized cercopithecoid monkey and cranial and postcranial remains of a large

anthropoid Anthropoid means 'ape/human feature' and may refer to: * Simian, monkeys and apes (anthropoids, or suborder Anthropoidea, in earlier classifications) *Anthropoid apes - apes that are closely related to humans (e.g., former family Pongidae and some ...

ape — later to become the

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

s '' Victoriapithecus macinnesi'' and '' Sivapithecus africanus''. Leakey and D.M.S. Watson returned to Maboko in 1949 to collect a large amount of specimen, including an isolated molar later attributed to '' Limnopithecus legetet''. Leakey returned again in 1951 and found fossils of new holotypes: '' Victoriapithecus leakeyi'', '' Mabokopithecus clarki'', and ''

Nyanzapithecus pickfordi ''Nyanzapithecus pickfordi'' is an extinct species of primate from the Middle Miocene of Maboko Island, Nyanza Province, Kenya. It had an average body mass of around . Taxonomy Fifteen cranio-dental specimens of this species were collected fro ...

''. An expedition in 1973 led by D.R. Pilbeam resulted in over 80 primate specimen. Most of them could be attributed to ''Victoriapithecus'' but some were assigned to new species. In 1982 and 1983,

Martin Pickford Martin Pickford was lecturer in the Chair of Paleoanthropology and Prehistory at the Collège de France and honorary affiliate at the Département Histoire de la Terre in the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, Muséum national d'Histoire. ...

searched the deposit dumps left by Owen in 1933 and by Leakey in 1949 and unveiled over 500 isolated specimen of at least five antropoid primates, later assigned to '' Kenyapithecus africanus''. ''Mabokopithecus clarki'', ''

Micropithecus ''Micropithecus'' is an extinct genus of primates that lived in East Africa about 19 to 15 million years ago, during the early Miocene. The genus and its type species, ''Micropithecus clarki'', were first scientifically described in 1978. Joh ...

'', ''Victoriapithecus macinnesi'', and ''Nyanzapithecus pickfordi''. Other fossils collected on Maboko includes: * Mammals **

Mole rat Mole-rat or mole rat can refer to several groups of burrowing Old World rodents: * Bathyergidae, a family of about 20 hystricognath species in six genera from Africa also called blesmols. *'' Heterocephalus glaber'', the naked mole-rat. * Spalaci ...

: '' Bathyergidae indet.'' **

Hedgehog A hedgehog is a spiny mammal of the subfamily Erinaceinae, in the eulipotyphlan family Erinaceidae. There are seventeen species of hedgehog in five genera found throughout parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and in New Zealand by introducti ...

: ''

Erinaceidae Erinaceidae is a family in the order Eulipotyphla, consisting of the hedgehogs and moonrats. Until recently, it was assigned to the order Erinaceomorpha, which has been subsumed with the paraphyletic Soricomorpha into Eulipotyphla. Eulipotyphla ...

'' **

Hyrax Hyraxes (), also called dassies, are small, thickset, herbivorous mammals in the order Hyracoidea. Hyraxes are well-furred, rotund animals with short tails. Typically, they measure between long and weigh between . They are superficially simil ...

: ''

Megalohyrax ''Megalohyrax'' is an extinct hyrax-grouped genus of herbivorous mammal that lived during the Miocene, Oligocene, and Eocene, about 55-11 million years ago. Its fossils have been found in Africa and in Asia Minor. Description This animal was v ...

'' **

Chalicothere Chalicotheres (from Greek '' chalix'', "gravel" and '' therion'', "beast") are an extinct clade of herbivorous, odd-toed ungulate (perissodactyl) mammals that lived in North America, Eurasia, and Africa from the Middle Eocene until the Early Plei ...

: '' Chalicotheriidae indet.'' **

Giraffe The giraffe is a large African hoofed mammal belonging to the genus ''Giraffa''. It is the tallest living terrestrial animal and the largest ruminant on Earth. Traditionally, giraffes were thought to be one species, ''Giraffa camelopardalis ...

: ''

Palaeotragus ''Palaeotragus'' ("ancient goat") is a genus of very large, primitive, okapi-like giraffids from the Miocene of Africa and Eurasia. ''Palaeotragus primaevus'' is the older species, being found in early to mid-Miocene strata, while ''P. germaini' ...

'' **

Antelope The term antelope is used to refer to many species of even-toed ruminant that are indigenous to various regions in Africa and Eurasia. Antelope comprise a wastebasket taxon defined as any of numerous Old World grazing and browsing hoofed mammals ...

: ''

Eotragus ''Eotragus'' is an extinct genus of early bovid. Species belonging to the genus inhabited Europe, Africa, and Asia during the Miocene some 20-18 million years ago. It is related to the modern nilgai and four-horned antelope. It was small and pr ...

'' **

Gazelle A gazelle is one of many antelope species in the genus ''Gazella'' . This article also deals with the seven species included in two further genera, ''Eudorcas'' and ''Nanger'', which were formerly considered subgenera of ''Gazella''. A third f ...

: ''

Gazella A gazelle is one of many antelope species in the genus ''Gazella'' . This article also deals with the seven species included in two further genera, ''Eudorcas'' and ''Nanger'', which were formerly considered subgenera of ''Gazella''. A third f ...

'' * Reptiles **

Crocodile Crocodiles (family (biology), family Crocodylidae) or true crocodiles are large semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term crocodile is sometimes used even more loosely to inclu ...

: ''

Crocodylus ''Crocodylus'' is a genus of true crocodiles in the family Crocodylidae. Taxonomy The generic name, ''Crocodylus'', was proposed by Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti in 1768. ''Crocodylus'' contains 13–14 extant (living) species and 5 extinct species ...

'' **

Heron The herons are long-legged, long-necked, freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae, with 72 recognised species, some of which are referred to as egrets or bitterns rather than herons. Members of the genera ''Botaurus'' and ''Ixobrychus ...

: ''

Ardeidae The herons are long-legged, long-necked, freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae, with 72 recognised species, some of which are referred to as egrets or bitterns rather than herons. Members of the genera ''Botaurus'' and ''Ixobrychus ...

indet.'' **

Bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

: ''

Otididae Bustards, including floricans and korhaans, are large, terrestrial birds living mainly in dry grassland areas and on the steppes of the Old World. They range in length from . They make up the family Otididae (, formerly known as Otidae). Bustards ...

indet.'' ** Crane: '' Gruidae indet.'' ** Stone-curlew: ''

Burhinidae The stone-curlews, also known as dikkops or thick-knees, consist of 10 species within the family Burhinidae, and are found throughout the tropical and temperate parts of the world, with two or more species occurring in some areas of Africa, Asia, ...

indet.'' ** Sideneck turtle: ''

Pelusios ''Pelusios'' is a genus of African side-necked turtles. With 17 described species, it is one of the most diverse genera of the turtle order (Testudines). Etymology The Latin name ''Pelusios'' means "mud" or "clay", and this is reflected by the ...

'' **

Softshell turtle The Trionychidae are a taxonomic family of a number of turtle genera, commonly known as softshell turtles. The family was erected by Leopold Fitzinger in 1826. Softshells include some of the world's largest freshwater turtles, though many can a ...

: ''

Trionyx ''Trionyx'' is a genus of softshell turtles belonging to the family Trionychidae. In the past many species in the family were classified in this genus, but today '' T. triunguis'', the African or Nile softshell turtle, is the only extant softshel ...

'' * Other: **

Land snail A land snail is any of the numerous species of snail that live on land, as opposed to the sea snails and freshwater snails. ''Land snail'' is the common name for terrestrial gastropod mollusks that have shells (those without shells are known as ...

: ''

Urocyclidae Urocyclidae is a family of air-breathing land snails, semi-slugs and land slugs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Helicarionoidea, (according to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005). Some spec ...

indet.''

Notes

References

* * {{coord, 00, 09, 50, S, 34, 36, 35, E, type:isle_region:KE, display=title Lake islands of Kenya Islands of Lake Victoria Miocene paleontological sites of Africa

Excavations

See also

Notes

References