Topic
Apidium
About: Apidium is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 40 publications have been published within this topic receiving 2188 citations.
Papers
TL;DR: This paper showed that only the lowest 48 m of the Jebel Qatrani Formation are likely to be Eocene in age, and the youngest Fayum anthropoids are probably between 30.2 and 29.5 Ma, ≈3-4 Ma younger than previously thought.
Abstract: The Jebel Qatrani Formation of northern Egypt has produced Afro-Arabia’s primary record of Paleogene mammalian evolution, including the world’s most complete remains of early anthropoid primates. Recent studies of Fayum mammals have assumed that the Jebel Qatrani Formation contains a significant Eocene component (≈150 of 340 m), and that most taxa from that succession are between 35.4 and 33.3 million years old (Ma), i.e., latest Eocene to earliest Oligocene in age. Reanalysis of the chronological evidence shared by later Paleogene strata exposed in Egypt and Oman (Taqah and Thaytiniti areas, Dhofar Province) reveals that this hypothesis is no longer tenable. Revised correlation of the Fayum and Dhofar magnetostratigraphies indicates that (i) only the lowest 48 m of the Jebel Qatrani Formation are likely to be Eocene in age; (ii) the youngest Fayum anthropoids, including well known species such as Aegyptopithecus zeuxis and Apidium phiomense, are probably between 30.2 and 29.5 Ma, ≈3–4 Ma younger than previously thought; (iii) oligopithecid anthropoids did not go extinct at the Eocene–Oligocene boundary but rather persisted for at least another 2.5 Ma; (iv) propliopithecid anthropoids first appear in the Fayum area at ≈31.5 Ma, long after the Eocene–Oligocene boundary; and (v) the youngest Fayum mammals may be only ≈1 Ma older than the 28- to 27-Ma mammals from Chilga, Ethiopia, and not 4–5 Ma older, as previously thought. Whatever gap exists in the Oligocene record of Afro-Arabian mammal evolution is now limited primarily to a poorly sampled 27- to 23-Ma window in the latest Oligocene.
158 citations
TL;DR: Fossils of two previously unknown genera and species of Egyptian early Tertiary Anthropoidea discovered in the Fayum Depression of Egypt appear to be the oldest primates undoubtedly related to humans and their dental anatomy points to a derivation of Anthropoida from Eocene adapids.
Abstract: In 1987 and 1988 fossils of two previously unknown genera and species of Egyptian early Tertiary Anthropoidea were discovered in the Fayum Depression of Egypt These are much older than all other Fayum, Oligocene primates and are believed to be Eocene in age These genera, here named Catopithecus and Proteopithecus, come from a new Fayum site, L-41, and resemble Oligopithecus from the Jebel Qatrani Formation (lower sequence) at quarry E They are here placed with the latter in a subfamily, Oligopithecinae, that is ranked in the Propliopithecidae The level of L-41 is separated from quarry E by at least one major unconformity and 47 m of section Only a maxilla of Proteopithecus is known Its molars and premolars resemble those of later Fayum Propliopithecus and Aegyptopithecus and do not resemble those of Apidium and Parapithecus, all of which come from the Jebel Qatrani Formation, upper sequence The type specimen of Catopithecus confirms a lower dental formula of 2-1-2-3, as in Catarrhini These species appear to be the oldest primates undoubtedly related to humans Their dental anatomy points to a derivation of Anthropoidea from Eocene adapids
145 citations
TL;DR: In most features, the humerus of Aegyptopithecus zeuxis is more primitive than the hypothetical last common ancestor of extant cercopithecoids and hominoids based on neontological comparisons.
Abstract: Two complete humeri of Aegyptopithecus zeuxis have been recovered from Oligocene deposits in the Fayum Province of Egypt. These new specimens support previous interpretations of the locomotor adaptations of this species and indicate that A. zeuxis was a robust, slowly moving arboreal quadruped. While the previously described distal articular region of the humerus is virtually identical with the same region in many extant ceboids and the Miocene hominoid Pliopithecus vindobonensis, the more proximal parts of the humerus show many primitive “prosimianlike” features not found in the limbs of extant anthropoids. The primitive features include the absence of a distinct deltoid plane, a broad shallow bicipital groove, a large brachialis flange, and an entepicondylar foramen. In most features, the humerus of Aegyptopithecus zeuxis is more primitive than the hypothetical last common ancestor of extant cercopithecoids and hominoids based on neontological comparisons. This supports other lines of evidence indicating that the hominoids from the Egyptian Oligocene are morphologically ancestral to both Old World monkeys and apes.
131 citations
TL;DR: A phyletic position for parapithecids involves fewer evolutionary parallelisms and reversals in anthropoid evolution than does any other phylogeny and suggests that the origin of anthropoids from prosimians was most probably in Africa.
130 citations
TL;DR: An associated group of cranial fragments and upper teeth of Apidium phiomense from the Oligocene of Egypt includes two fragments of the right temporal bone.
Abstract: An associated group of cranial fragments and upper teeth of Apidium phiomense from the Oligocene of Egypt includes two fragments of the right temporal bone. The petrosal fragment pr
99 citations
Related Topics (5)
Performance Metrics
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 1 |
| 2020 | 1 |
| 2016 | 2 |
| 2015 | 1 |
| 2013 | 1 |
| 2011 | 1 |