Miocene Catarrhine Primates from East Africa

Terry Harrison is working on several projects relating to Proconsul and other Miocene catarrhines from East Africa, including a revision of the taxonomy of Proconsul and a reassessment of its phylogenetic relationships and paleobiology.  Proconsul is one of the best-known Miocene catarrhine primates.  Six species of Proconsul are currently known from early to middle Miocene localities in Kenya and Uganda.  Most consider Proconsul to be an early hominoid, but others argue that it is a stem catarrhine (i.e., the sister group to Old World monkeys and apes).  Regardless of its precise phylogenetic affinities, Proconsul clearly occupies an evolutionary grade close to the initial divergence of apes and Old World monkeys.

          

Selected recent publications

Harrison, T. 2017. Miocene Primates, in A. Fuentes, (Ed.) The International Encyclopedia of Primatology, Volume II, pp. 1181-1183.  Wiley, Hoboken, NJ.

Harrison, T. 2017. Proconsul, in A. Fuentes (Ed.) The International Encyclopedia of Primatology, Volume III, pp. 809-813.  Wiley, Hoboken, NJ.

Harrison, T. 2013. Catarrhine origins, in D. Begun (Ed.) A Companion to Paleoanthropology, pp. 376-396.  New York: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Harrison, T. 2010. Dendropithecoidea, Proconsuloidea and Hominoidea, in L. Werdelin & W.J. Sanders (Eds.) Cenozoic Mammals of Africa, pp. 429-469. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Harrison, T. 2010. Apes among the tangled branches of human origins. Science 327: 532-534.

Harrison, T. & Andrews, P. 2009. The anatomy and systematic position of a new species of early Miocene proconsulid from Meswa Bridge, Kenya.  Journal of Human Evolution 56: 479-496.