Nyanzapithecus
Nyanzapithecus is an extinct genus of primates from the Middle Miocene of Maboko Island, Nyanza Province, Kenya. It weighed about 10 kilograms on average and is known from four species: Nyanzapithecus pickfordi (the type species), N. vancouveringorum, N. harrisoni, and N. alesi. Fossils were collected on Maboko Island, including about 15 cranio-dental specimens from 1933–1973.
During a 1982–83 expedition, paleoanthropologist Martin Pickford recovered more than a hundred small catarrhine fossils. In 1986, Harrison named Nyanzapithecus pickfordi and moved the Rangwapithecus vancouveringi into Nyanzapithecus as N. vancouveringorum. Nyanzapithecus is considered closely related to Rangwapithecus and Mabokopithecus based on dental similarities and may be an early relative of Oreopithecus bambolii. It was originally placed in Oreopithecidae but later moved to Proconsulidae.
Kunimatsu described N. harrisoni in 1997 from Nachola, Kenya. In 1998 Benefit and colleagues suggested Mabokopithecus clarki might be the same species as N. pickfordi and proposed renaming it Mabokopithecus pickfordi/clarki, with Kunimatsu’s species M. harrisoni also affected by this view.
Nyanzapithecus pickfordi has a dental formula of 2:1:2:3 on both upper and lower jaws. The upper premolars are long with cusps of similar size, and the lower molars have deep notches, indicating a leaf-based (folivorous) diet.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 11:45 (CET).