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 ancestor of all the great apes. More recent investigations suggest Kenyapithecus is more primitive than that and is only slightly more modern than Proconsul, which is considered to be an ape.

Kenyapithecus

Ghedoghedo · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
KenyapitheciniPBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Hominidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Hominidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 9.3 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 23.04 Mya and 13.82 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Oligocene — about 0 of 6 occurrencesMiocene — about 6 of 6 occurrencesMiocene23–23 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences23–23 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences23.5 Mya13.3 Mya

6 occurrences of Kenyapithecus on record, most of them in the Miocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

6 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

2 formations

Maboko — 0.17°N, 34.62°EMaboko — 0.15°N, 34.62°EBakate — 4.27°N, 36.60°E

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The named rock units Kenyapithecus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Kenyapithecus and its relatives

Miocene

Where Kenyapithecus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

102 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Kenyapithecus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

5 references

Each of the 6 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Kenyapithecus

Credit
Ghedoghedo
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Kenyapithecus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itKenyapithecini through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Leakey 1961