''Ekembo nyanzae'', originally classed as a species of ''

Proconsul A proconsul was an official of ancient Rome who acted on behalf of a consul. A proconsul was typically a former consul. The term is also used in recent history for officials with delegated authority. In the Roman Republic, military command, or ...

'', is a species of

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 ...

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 ...

first discovered by Louis Leakey on

Rusinga Island Rusinga Island, with an elongated shape approximately 10 miles (16 km) from end to end and 3 miles (5 km) at its widest point, lies in the eastern part of Lake Victoria at the mouth of the Winam Gulf. Part of Kenya, it is linked to Mbita ...

in 1942, which he published in ''Nature'' in 1943. It is also known by the name ''Dryopithecus africanus''. A joint publication of

Wilfrid Le Gros Clark Sir Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark (5 June 1895 – 28 June 1971) was a British anatomist, surgeon, primatologist and palaeoanthropologist, today best remembered for his contribution to the study of human evolution. He was Dr Lee's Professor of ...

and Louis Leakey in 1951, "The Miocene Hominoidea of East Africa", first defines ''Proconsul nyanzae''. In 1965 Simons and Pilbeam replaced ''Proconsul'' with ''Dryopithecus'', using the same species names. In 1967, Louis defined '' Kenyapithecus africanus'' on seven fossils from

. He saw it as an ancestor of ''wickeri'' and also of man, with a date of 20 mya in the 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 ...

. Another fossil found by the VanCouverings on Rusinga in 1967 seemed to confirm ''africanus''. In 1969 Simons and Pilbeam moved ''Kenyapithecus africanus'' into ''Dryopithecus nyanzae''. By 1978 the genus had recovered from the Dryopithecine event and was back to ''Proconsul''. In that year Andrews moved Clark & Leakey's 1951 ''Sivapithecus africanus'' into ''Proconsul nyanzae''. In 2015, it was moved into the new genus '' Ekembo''. A more recent discovery by Ward ''et al.'' in 1999 and reclassification splits ''Kenyapithecus africanus'' away again and lumps it with ''Equatorius africanus'', which would move it to the subfamily Afropithecinae with '' Afropithecus turkanensis''. As ''Ekembo'', ''

Kenyapithecus ''Kenyapithecus wickeri'' is a fossil ape discovered by Louis Leakey in 1961 at a site called Fort Ternan in Kenya. The upper jaw and teeth were dated to 14 million years ago. One theory states that ''Kenyapithecus'' may be the common ances ...

'' may not be in the same clade as apes and humans, but as the older ''

Equatorius ''Equatorius'' is an extinct genus of kenyapithecine primate found in central Kenya at the Tugen Hills. Thirty-eight large teeth belonging to this middle Miocene hominid in addition to a mandibular and partially complete skeleton dated 15.58 M ...

'', it may be.

Morphology

''Ekembo nyanzae'' had a

dental formula Dentition pertains to the development of teeth and their arrangement in the mouth. In particular, it is the characteristic arrangement, kind, and number of teeth in a given species at a given age. That is, the number, type, and morpho-physiolo ...

of 2:1:2:3 on both the upper and lower jaw. The upper premolars of ''E. nyanzae'' were large. This species had a relatively thick enamel on the molars. The

mandible In anatomy, the mandible, lower jaw or jawbone is the largest, strongest and lowest bone in the human facial skeleton. It forms the lower jaw and holds the lower teeth in place. The mandible sits beneath the maxilla. It is the only movable bone ...

of this

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

was relatively robust. ''E. nyanzae'' had an average body mass of about .

Range

''E. nyanzae'' lived on the

continent A continent is any of several large landmasses. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven geographical regions are commonly regarded as continents. Ordered from largest in area to smallest, these seven ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

and the fossils were found in areas that suggest it lived in a dry, open

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

environment Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally * Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...

References

External links

* The History Files
Hominid Chronology
*http://members.tripod.com/cacajao/equatorius_africanus.html

Mikko's Phylogeny archive
Proconsul nyanzae
classification in the Taxonomicon site *
Partial skeleton of Proconsul nyanzae from Mfangano Island, Kenya
abstract of article by CV Ward in ''American Journal of Physical Anthropology'', Volume 90, Issue 1, Pages 77 – 111, shown on Wiley Interscience site. {{Taxonbar, from=Q2563949 Prehistoric apes Miocene primates of Africa Fossil taxa described in 1950

Morphology

Range

See also

References

External links