Proconsul, an ape without a tail
An East African forest primate has lost its tail but still walks along branches like a monkey.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 6 million years
- Known to
- ± 1 million years
- Era
- Miocene, Cenozoic
Proconsul is known from good material in Kenya and Uganda and is the best-understood early ape. It has no tail, which is the defining hominoid trait, but its backbone, pelvis and limbs are still built for walking along the tops of branches rather than hanging beneath them. Its brain is larger relative to body size than a monkey's. It shows that the ape body plan was assembled in stages, with taillessness arriving well before the suspensory shoulder that later apes are defined by.