Masripithecus
Sign in to saveMasripithecus () (mean: Egyptian ape) is an extinct genus of hominoid primate known from the Early Miocene Moghra Formation of Wadi Moghra in northern Egypt. It contains a single species, Masripithecus moghraensis, described in 2026 from mandibular remains dating to about 17–18 million years ago. The genus was described as the first definitive fossil ape known from North Africa, and the original study recovered it as closer to crown hominoids than coeval fossil apes from East Africa.
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- Haplorhini
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- taxon name
- Masripithecus
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Encyclopedic overview
6 sectionsContents
- Discovery and naming
- Morphology
- Phylogeny
- Palaeobiology
- Palaeoenvironment
- References
Masripithecus () (mean: Egyptian ape) is an extinct genus of hominoid primate known from the Early Miocene Moghra Formation of Wadi Moghra in northern Egypt. It contains a single species, Masripithecus moghraensis, described in 2026 from mandibular remains dating to about 17–18 million years ago. The genus was described as the first definitive fossil ape known from North Africa, and the original study recovered it as closer to crown hominoids than coeval fossil apes from East Africa.
== Discovery and naming == Masripithecus moghraensis was named by Shorouq F. Al-Ashqar and colleagues in 2026 on the basis of fossil mandibular material from the Moghra Formation in the Wadi Moghra area, in the northeastern part of the Qattara Depression of northern Egypt. The fossils are dated to the late Early Miocene, about 17–18 million years ago.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Masripithecus” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.