Proconsul africanus

Proconsul africanus
Temporal range: 23–14 Ma Miocene
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Suborder: Haplorhini
Infraorder: Simiiformes
Family: Proconsulidae
Genus: Proconsul
Species:
P. africanus
Binomial name
Proconsul africanus
Hopwood, 1933b

Proconsul africanus was an ape which lived from about 23 to 14 million years ago during the Miocene epoch. It was a fruit eater and its brain was larger than that of a monkey, although probably not as large as that of a modern ape.[1]

It was named by paleontologist Arthur Hopwood in 1933 after a number of chimpanzees all called Consul, which performed human like circus acts, such as riding a bicycle and playing the piano, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.[2] Other species of the genus Proconsul have since been discovered.

  1. ^ "Proconsul africanus". archaelogyinfo.com.
  2. ^ Walker, Alan; Shipman, Pat (2005). The Ape in the Tree. Harvard University Press. p. 4. ISBN 0-674-01675-0.

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