Proconsul africanus

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.

Proconsul africanus

Mauricio Antón, published with Alan Turner · CC BY 4.0 · 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
Sits inside
ProconsulPBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Primates
Life habit
arborealPBDB, for Primates
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 2.1 million years on record.

The record covers at least 15.98 Mya to 13.82 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 20.45 Mya to 11.63 Mya.

Miocene — about 2 of 2 occurrencesMiocene21–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences15.98 Mya13.82 Mya20.9 Mya11.1 Mya

2 occurrences of Proconsul africanus on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

2 occurrences

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.

Found in

2 formations

Hiwegi — 0.40°S, 34.15°EUpper Koru Series — 0.23°S, 35.34°E

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The named rock units Proconsul africanus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Proconsul africanus and its relatives

Miocene

Where Proconsul africanus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

56 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Proconsul africanus, 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

2 references

Each of the 2 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Proconsul africanus

Credit
Mauricio Antón, published with Alan Turner
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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

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 itProconsul through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hopwood 1933