Login
Dinopithecus ingens is a large, extinct ‘baboon-like’ cercopithecid defined by Broom in 1937 on the basis of a mandible and crushed partial skull from Schurweberg, Gauteng, South Africa (Plio-Pleistocene). The species remained poorly known for two decades until Freedman added a quantity of fossils from Swartkrans to the hypodigm. For the majority of subsequent researchers, the Swartkrans fossils were accepted as defining the species, despite morphometric differences in the dentitions of the samples from the two sites. Restudy of the type specimens reveals that none of the fossils from Swartkrans resembles the Schurweberg fossils, the Swartkrans assemblage resembling Papio and Gorgopithecus and differing morphometrically from Dinopithecus. Some of the dental features that distinguish Dinopithecus from Papio and Gorgopithecus recall specimens of fossil and extant geladas, as was noted by Arambourg in 1947 when he defined the species Dinopithecus brumpti from the Omo region, Ethiopia. The latter species was transferred to the subgenus Theropithecus (Omopithecus) by Delson in 1993, but it is herein raised to the rank of genus. In 1955, Arambourg recorded Dinopithecus from the Humpata Plateau in Angola, from cave breccias now known to have yielded abundant specimens of the extinct gelada lineage, Omopithecus baringensis. The Humpata discoveries prompted a close examination of the South African ‘baboon-like’ fossils with which they were previously compared and it is concluded that Dinopithecus does not occur in Angola, but its relative Omopithecus does. It became apparent during the study that the Humpata breccias are likely to date from the Middle Pliocene (ca. 4 ± 0.5 Ma) whereas the Schurwerberg deposits are likely to be aged between 1.4 and 0.4 Ma.
Full Text of the Article
