Ouranopithecus

Ouranopithecus
Temporal range: Miocene, 9.6–7.4 Ma
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"Ouranopithecus macedoniensis" skull in the French National Museum of Natural History, Paris
Ouranopithecus macedoniensis skull in the French National Museum of Natural History, Paris
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Suborder: Haplorhini
Infraorder: Simiiformes
Family: Hominidae
Tribe: †Graecopithecini
Genus: †Ouranopithecus
Bonis & Melentis, 1977
Species

Ouranopithecus is a genus of extinct Eurasian great ape represented by two species, Ouranopithecus macedoniensis, a late Miocene (9.6–8.7 mya) hominoid from Greece[1] and Ouranopithecus turkae, also from the late Miocene (8.7–7.4 mya) of Turkey.[2]

The first specimen O. macedoniensis was discovered by French palaeontologists Louis de Bonis and Jean Melentis in 1977,[3] and O. turkae by Turkish team led by Erksin Savaş Güleç in 2007.[2] For a long time it was considered as similar (synonymous) to Graecopithecus and member of the genus Sivapithecus,[4] which more discoveries proved otherwise.

  1. ^ de Bonis, Louis; Melentis, J (1977). "Les primates hominoides du Vallésien de Macédoine (Grèce). Étude de la machoire inférieure". Geobios. 10 (6): 849–855. Bibcode:1977Geobi..10..849D. doi:10.1016/s0016-6995(77)80081-8.
  2. ^ a b Gulec, Erksin S.; et al. (2007). "A new great ape from the lower Miocene of Turkey". Anthropological Science. 115 (2): 153–158. doi:10.1537/ase.070501.
  3. ^ de Bonis, Louis; Melentis, Jean (1977). "Les primates hominoides du Vallésien de Macédoine (Grèce). Étude de la machoire inférieure". Geobios. 10 (6): 849–885. Bibcode:1977Geobi..10..849D. doi:10.1016/S0016-6995(77)80081-8.
  4. ^ Martin, L.B.; Andrews, P. (1984). "The phyletic position of Graecopithecus freybergi Koenigswald". Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg. 69: 25–40.