Pierolapithecus and the great ape body
A Catalan ape has a broad flat chest and mobile shoulders — the great ape torso, fully assembled.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 100 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 300 thousand years
- Era
- Miocene, Cenozoic
Pierolapithecus catalaunicus, from about 12 million years ago near Barcelona, preserves an unusually complete skeleton showing a wide, shallow ribcage, a spine positioned toward the back of the thorax, and wrist and shoulder joints built for climbing vertically and reaching overhead — the orthograde body plan shared by all living great apes. Its fingers, however, are not especially long or curved, indicating it climbed rather than hung. It separates two things often assumed to arrive together: the upright torso comes first, dedicated suspension later.