ANTB14H3 Chapter : B14 Article.doc
Document Summary
B14 article miocene apes: during the miocene epoch, as many as 100 species of apes roamed throughout the old world. The word hominoid encompasses all apes including gibbons and siamangs and humans. The best known ape from this period is proconsul, exceptionally complete fossils of which have come from sites on kenya"s rusinga island. Proconsul gives us a good idea of the anatomy and locomotion of an early ape. Like all extant apes, this one lacked a tail. And it had more mobile hips, shoulders, wrists, ankles, hands and feet than those of monkeys, presaging the fundamental adaptations that today"s apes and humans have for flexibility in these joints. Most of the early miocene apes went extinct. Today this ape, which dwells in the rain forests of borneo and sumatra, is the sole survivor of that successful group. The best-known eurasian fossil ape, in terms of the percentage of the skeleton recovered, is seven-millionyear- old oreopithecus from italy.
