Proconsul major

Proconsul major, an extinct primate of the genus Proconsul, was possibly the ancestor of Afropithecus and showed hominid characteristics. It occurred during the early Miocene and was roughly, the size of a gorilla. The species previously referred to as Ugandapithecus major is now considered to be a synonym of Proconsul major. Prior to 2000, it was known as Proconsul major and some argue against the renaming.

Proconsul major

No machine-readable author provided. Mateuszica~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). · 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
ProconsulPBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Primates
Life habit
arborealPBDB, for Primates
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 8.9 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 20.45 Mya and 11.63 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Miocene — about 4 of 4 occurrencesMiocene21–20 Mya — about 0.1 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 0.2 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20.9 Mya11.1 Mya

4 occurrences of Proconsul major 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

4 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

Tiim — 0.84°N, 35.82°ELegetet — 0.18°S, 35.27°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Proconsul major 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.

Proconsul major and its relatives

Miocene

Where Proconsul major and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

77 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Proconsul major, 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

4 references

Each of the 4 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 content2

Picture of Proconsul major

Credit
No machine-readable author provided. Mateuszica~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims).
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Proconsul major · nmk:so:5141

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 itProconsul through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Le Gros Clark and Leakey 1950