Hylobatidae
Gibbons are apes in the family Hylobatidae. The family historically contained one genus, but now is split into four extant genera and 20 species. Gibbons live in subtropical and tropical forests from eastern Bangladesh and Northeast India to Southeast Asia and Indonesia.

JJ Harrison ( jjharrison89@facebook.com ) · CC BY 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- Also called
- gibbonPBDB
- Sits inside
- HominoideaPBDB
- Diet
- frugivore, folivorePBDB
- Life habit
- arborealPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
- Mass
- 8.5 kgWikidata
Time the record covers
At least 645 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 774 ka to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
14 occurrences of Hylobatidae on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
14 occurrences- Pleistocene99%
- Holoceneunder 1%
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.
Hylobatidae and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Hylobatidae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
207 taxa- Macaca10 sites
- Hystrix9 sites
- Rhinoceros sinensis8 sites
- Stegodon insignis8 sites
- Arctonyx collaris7 sites
- Sus7 sites
- Tapirus (Megatapirus) augustus7 sites
- Sus scrofa6 sites
- Ursus thibetanus6 sites
- Cervus5 sites
- Cervus unicolor5 sites
- Cuon5 sites
- Hylobates5 sites
- Panthera tigris5 sites
- Atherurus4 sites
- Bos (Bibos)4 sites
- Bubalus4 sites
- Gigantopithecus blacki4 sites
- Megalovis4 sites
- Muntiacus4 sites
- Muntiacus muntjak4 sites
- Rhinopithecus4 sites
- Ursus malayanus4 sites
- Ailuropoda melanoleuca3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Hylobatidae, 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
11 references- High-handed opinions on taxonomy and other matters4
- The Middle Pleistocene mammalian fauna from Tam Hang karstic deposit, northern Laos: New data and evolutionary hypothesis1
- New discoveries of Gigantopithecus blacki teeth from Chuifeng Cave in the Bubing Basin, Guangxi, south China1
- A newly discovered Gigantopithecus fauna from Sanhe Cave, Chongzuo, Guangxi, South China1
- Geochronology of Ailuropoda–Stegodon fauna and Gigantopithecus in Guangxi Province, southern China1
- The Late Neogene elephantoid-bearing faunas of Indonesia and their palaeozoogeographic implications. A study of the terrestrial faunal succession of Sulawesi, Flores and Java, including evidence for early hominid dispersal east of Wallace's Line1
- Pleistocene fossil Primates from Luoding, Guangdong1
- A review of the Pleistocene hominoid fauna of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (excluding Hylobatidae)1
- A diverse hominoid fauna from the late middle Pleistocene breccia cave of Tham Khuyen, Socialist Republic of Vietnam1
- Prehistoric bone: The gibbons and monkeys of Niah Great Cave1
- New fossil mammals from the Pliocene of Sze-chuan, China1
Each of the 14 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 content1
Picture of Hylobatidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- JJ Harrison ( jjharrison89@facebook.com )
- Licence
- CC BY 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Hylobatidae was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Gibbon”
- 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 itHominoidea through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gray 1870