| LC control no. | sh 85123056 |
|---|---|
| LC classification | QE882.P7 |
| Topical heading | Sivapithecus |
| Variant(s) | Ramapithecus |
| See also | Fossil hominids |
| Found in | Wikipedia, Jan. 8, 2014 (Sivapithecus is a genus of extinct primates. Fossil remains of animals now assigned to this genus, dated from 12.5 million to 8.5 million years old in the Miocene, have been found since the 19th century in the Siwalik Hills in the Indian Subcontinent. Any one of the species in this genus may have been the ancestor to the modern orangutans; Currently three species are generally recognized: Sivapithecus indicus; Sivapithecus sivalensis; Sivapithecus parvada; classification: Family Hominidae, Subfamily Ponginae, Genus Sivapithecus; Siwalik specimens once assigned to the genus Ramapithecus are now considered by most researchers to belong to one or more species of Sivapithecus. Ramapithecus is no longer regarded as a likely ancestor of humans; more complete specimens of Ramapithecus were found in 1975 and 1976, which showed that it was less human-like than had been thought. It began to look more and more like Sivapithecus - meaning that the older name must take priority. It could be that Ramapithecus was just the female form of Sivapithecus. They were definitely members of the same genus) Encyc. Britannica online, Jan. 8, 2014: Sivapithecus (Sivapithecus, fossil primate genus dating from the Miocene Epoch (23.7 to 5.3 million years ago) and thought to be the direct ancestor of the orangutan. Sivapithecus is closely related to Ramapithecus, and fossils of the two primates have often been recovered from the same deposits in the Siwālik Hills of northern Pakistan. Other Sivapithecus remains have been found at sites in Turkey, Pakistan, China, Greece, and Kenya. Some authorities maintain that Sivapithecus and Ramapithecus are in fact the same species. Though Sivapithecus was slightly larger than Ramapithecus, it was only a small-to-medium-sized ape about the size of a modern chimpanzee. The fossil remains of Sivapithecus reveal that it shared many of the same specialized facial features of the orangutan--i.e., eyes set narrowly apart, a concave face, a smooth nasal floor, large zygomatic bones, and enlarged central incisors. Sivapithecus' place in primate evolution was poorly understood until the 1980s. Prior to this, the genus, along with Ramapithecus, was interpreted as having both apelike and humanlike features and thus was presumed to be a possible first step in the evolutionary divergence of humans from the common hominoid stock of the apes. But new Sivapithecus finds and the reinterpretation of existing remains convinced most authorities in the 1980s that Sivapithecus was the ancestor of the modern orangutan and diverged from the common lineage of the African apes (i.e., chimpanzees and gorillas) and humans more than 13 million years ago. The earliest Sivapithecus remains found so far are about 17 million years old, and the most recent are about 8 million years old.) Encyc. Britannica online, Jan. 8, 2014: Ramapithecus (Ramapithecus, fossil primate genus dating from the Middle and Late Miocene epochs (about 16.6 to 5.3 million years ago). For a time in the 1960s and '70s Ramapithecus was thought to be the first direct ancestor of modern humans; Ramapithecus fossils subsequently were found to resemble those of the fossil primate genus Sivapithecus, which is now regarded as ancestral to the orangutan; the belief also grew that Ramapithecus probably should be included in the Sivapithecus genus) A taxonomy of extinct primates, via The Primata website, Jan. 8, 2014 (under Family Hominidae, Subfamily Ponginae: Sivapithecus sivalensis, Sivapithecus punjabicus, Sivapithecus parvada) Strauss, Bob. Sivapithecus (Ramapithecus), via About.com website, Jan. 8, 2014 (Sivapithecus occupies an important place on the prehistoric primate evolutionary flow chart: this slender, five-foot-long ape marked the time when early primates descended from the shelter of trees and started to explore the wide-open grasslands. This late Miocene ape had chimpanzee-like feet with flexible ankles, but otherwise it resembled an orangutan, to which it may have been directly ancestral (though it's possible that the orangutan-like features of Sivapithecus arose via the process of convergent evolution); Sivapithecus is intimately associated with Ramapithecus, a now-downgraded genus of central Asian primate that was once considered to be directly ancestral to modern humans. It turns out that the analysis of the original Ramapithecus fossils was flawed, and that this primate was less human-like than had initially been thought--and disturbingly similar to the earlier-named Sivapithecus. Today, most paleontologists believe that the fossils attributed to Ramapithecus actually represent the slightly smaller females of genus Sivapithecus--and that neither genus was a direct Homo sapiens ancestor) |
| Invalid LCCN | sh 85111281 |
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