Abstract
The Miocene of Africa and Eurasia contains an extensive fossil record of early apes and primitive catarrhines that are broadly ancestral to the living great apes and humans. The proconsuloids area diverse radiation of stem hominoids from the early and middle Miocene of eastern Africa. As a group they were predominantly arboreal and frugivorous also some taxa show indications of terrestrial quadrupedal abilities, and some were relatively folivorous. In the late Miocene of Africa there are some poorly known species that have been recognized as hominids, broadly related to extant great apes and humans. However, none of these fossil species show the numerous skeletal adaptations to suspensory behavior that characterize all living hominoids. Extant African great apes are known from only by single fossil chimp from the middle Pleistocene. In the Miocene of Europe, the pliopithecoids were a diverse radiation of medium-sized, arboreal, primitive catarrhines from the Miocene of Eurasia that includes both frugivorous and folivorous taxa with locomotor abilities similar to those of large platyrrhines. The European Miocene also contains many large fossil apes that were stem hominids. They were all arboreal frugivores but lacked the extreme suspensory adaptations of living great apes. Rather they show a mosaic pattern of suspensory features. There are several large fossil apes from the middle and late Miocene of Asia that include both stem hominids and several taxa directly related to the living orangutans. There are Pleistocene orangutans from many parts of Eastern Asia. The fossil history of gibbons is largely unknown.
Published Version
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