Proconsul
Name: Proconsul
(Before Consul).
Phonetic: Pro-con-sul.
Named By: Arthur Hopwood - 1933.
Synonyms: Kenyapithecus africanus,
Sivapithecus africanus,
Ugandapithecus, Xenopithecus koruensis.
Classification: Chordata, Mammalia, Primates,
Hominoidea, Proconsulidae.
Species: P. africanus (type),
P.
heseloni, P. major, P. nyanzae. P.
gitongai and P. meswae are sometimes
mentioned.
Diet: Herbivore, probably a specialist frugivore.
Size: Around 1 meter tall, but exact size
depends upon the species.
Known locations: East Africa.
Time period: Late Oligocene through to the end of
the Miocene.
Fossil representation: Multiple individuals.
Proconsul
is a primate that seems to be stuck in transition between monkeys and
apes. So far no tail has ever been found and the hands are more
dexterous than monkeys, together suggesting a primitive ape lineage.
The metacarpals however are curved and the postures of reconstructed
individuals are more like those of monkeys. Additionally the limbs of
Proconsul seem to only support above branch
locomotion which means that
while Proconsul could climb up branches, it would
have to stay on top
of them and probably could not move around by brachiation (swinging
from the underside of one branch to another). This view is also
confirmed by the presence of a rigid elbow joint that would have
limited the range of forelimb movements.
The
mix of monkey and ape features did actually lead to early speculation
that Proconsul might be a transitory form between
these two groups of
primates and hence an ancestor to humans. However further study of
Proconsul has now led to the wide acceptance of the
idea that Proconsul
is actually part of a sister group of primates (called the
Proconsulidae) related to but separate from the actual ancestors of
apes. Since most researchers today now treat Proconsul
as an
evolutionary offshoot of the actual ancestors of apes, this means
Proconsul is considered to no longer be a potential
ancestor to modern
humans. This is not all that surprising as throughout the animal
kingdom represented in the fossil record there are many evolutionary
side branches that radiate out from ancestral forms that don’t seem to
go anywhere and there is no reason for primates to be any different.
The
exact habitat that Proconsul inhabited is a little
uncertain as the
fossil sites that its fossils are known from suggest grassland or
forest. A compromise however would be woodland habitats where sparse
growths of trees were surrounded by more open grassland. In this
habitat Proconsul could scour the ground while
foraging while still
having the option of retreating into the trees at the first sign of
danger. Potential trouble could come from early sabre toothed cats
like Machairodus
that would have had a much harder time chasing
primates like Proconsul up and through the trees
rather than across
open ground.
The
teeth of Proconsul have very thin enamel on them
which reveals that the
teeth are not suited to heavy grinding of tough fibrous plants.
Instead the teeth of Proconsul are much better
suited to mashing soft
bodied fruits that could have either been picked from trees as they
ripened or foraged as Proconsul searched for fallen
fruits on the
ground. The canine teeth of male Proconsul are
larger than those of
females, something which is called sexual dimorphism. This size
difference was probably for the purpose of males displaying to one
another for dominance.
Those
of you who know there Roman history will know that Proconsul is
actually the title that was appointed to the governor of a province in
the Roman Empire, however this was not the inspiration for naming the
genus Proconsul (also note the change between the
lack of italics for
the Roman title definition and the inclusion of them for the genus
name - binomial names of animals must always be referred to in
italics). Around the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
there were two well-known performing chimpanzees that bore the name
Consul, one in the Folies Berg�re of Paris, France in 1903 and
the other in Belle Vue Zoo of Manchester, England in 1894. The
Consul of Belle Vue Zoo was also mentioned in a poem by Ben Brierley
after its death. The name Consul was also given to a chimpanzee at
London Zoo and while this is the one that Arthur Hopwood has in the
past been credited with using as inspiration, retellings of the story
have muddled things to the point where there are now different
variations. Rather than identifying the individual in question we’ll
skip to the important bit. The name Consul was one well known to
Hopwood that bore special significance to chimpanzees. With the
fossils of Proconsul being much older than any
remains known for a
chimpanzee, Hopwood added ‘Pro’ to ‘Consul’ to create
Proconsul, which simply means ‘Before
Consul’, referencing the
much earlier appearance of Proconsul before
chimpanzees.
Further reading
- The anatomy and systematic position of the early Miocene proconsulid
from Meswa Bridge, Kenya. - Journal of Human Evolution 56(5):479-496. -
T. Harrison & P. Andrews - 2009.
- A systematic revision of Proconsul with the description of a new
genus of early Miocene hominoid. - Journal of Human Evolution. 84:
42–61. - Kieran P. McNulty, David R. Begun, Jay Kelley, Fredrick K.
Manthi & Emma N. Mbua - 2015.
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