''Bunopithecus'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

genus 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 includin ...

represented by one species, ''Bunopithecus sericus'', a

gibbon Gibbons () are apes in the family Hylobatidae (). The family historically contained one genus, but now is split into four extant genera and 20 species. Gibbons live in subtropical and tropical rainforest from eastern Bangladesh to Northeast Indi ...

or gibbon-like ape. Its remains were first discovered in

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of t ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

, in strata from the

Middle Pleistocene The Chibanian, widely known by its previous designation of Middle Pleistocene, is an age in the international geologic timescale or a stage in chronostratigraphy, being a division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. Th ...

. Although the three

hoolock gibbon The hoolock gibbons are three primate species of genus ''Hoolock'' in the gibbon family, Hylobatidae, native to eastern Bangladesh, Northeast India, Myanmar, and Southwest China. Description Hoolocks are the second-largest of the gibbons, after ...

species were once included in the genus ''Bunopithecus'', they have recently been removed and ''B. sericus'' remains as the only known species of this genus.

References

Prehistoric apes Pleistocene primates Pleistocene mammals of Asia †Brunopithecus Fossil taxa described in 1923 Monotypic prehistoric primate genera Prehistoric primate genera {{Paleo-primate-stub