Small-bodied anthropoid (Primates, Catarrhini) from the Early Miocene of Moghara, Egypt
Abstract
The Early Miocene fluvio-marine and terrestrial deposits at Moghara, Qattara Depression, northern Egypt, have previously yielded several fragmentary mandibles of cercopithecoids and a humerus of a medium-sized anthropoid. In 2010, while studying Moghara fossils at the Cairo Geological Museum, the first author noticed an unpublished edentulous mandible of a primate that was collected in 1994 (specimen M94-90). The jaw is slightly larger than the type specimen and other material of Prohylobates tandyi and initially it was thought to belong to this species, but close examination reveals that it differs in a number of morphological features from mandibles of the latter taxon. All the differences point towards the identification of M94-90 as a hominoid or more likely as a pliopithecoid, and they distance it from the Cercopithecoidea. Its dimensions indicate an animal approximately the size of small gibbons such as Hylobates. In addition, there is an isolated lower canine in the Cairo University collections that is compatible in size and morphology with the unpublished mandible. This tooth, that was collected in 2005, is similar to specimens of Micropithecus clarki Fleagle et Simons, 1978, from the Early Miocene of Napak, Uganda, but also shows some resemblance to canines of pliopithecoids from Europe.