Name:
Dinopithecus
(Terrible ape).
Phonetic: Dy-noe-pif-e-cus.
Named By: Robert Broom - 1936.
Classification: Chordata, Mammalia, Primates,
Cercopithecidae.
Species: D. ingens (type).
Diet: Omnivore?
Size: Largest males estimated to have been about
77kg.
Known locations: Ethiopia - Matabaietu Formation.
Time period: Earliest confirmed appearance is the
Zanclean of the Pliocene, perhaps existing later into the Pleistocene.
Fossil representation: Partial remains including
skull and teeth.
Dinopithecus
is a genus of what was an exceptionally large baboon that is known to
have lived in Ethiopia during the Pliocene. Though only known from
partial remains, Dinopithecus is usually credited
with a shoulder
height of about one and a half meters tall. This height estimate is
usually reserved for males however, and usually female baboons are at
least a little bit smaller than the males. Regardless however,
there is no doubt that Dinopithecus was one of the
largest baboons to
ever exist, and substantially larger than the chacma/Cape baboon
(Papio ursinus) which is the largest type of
baboon alive today.
This is how the genus acquired its name as Dinopithecus
ingens
translates to English as ‘huge terrible ape’.
When
reconstructing Dinopithecus, researchers
generally look for a
general comparison to how modern baboons live. Like modern baboons,
Dinopithecus likely lived in groups that may have
numbered many dozens
of individuals. These groups were probably constantly on the move so
that their numbers were always able to find adequate amounts of food to
survive. Primary foods may have included fruits, nuts and roots
from various plants. However a 2006 thesis by Brian Carter noted
that dental wear patterns on baboons such as Dinopithecus
indicating a
greater amount of graminvory (grass eating).
It’s
possible that Dinopithecus supplemented its diet by
also hunting
animals such as invertebrates, fish, lizards, birds and mammals.
Large modern baboons have also been documented attacking animals as
large as goats and sheep, so it’s feasible that an even larger baboon
such as Dinopithecus would have been capable of
attacking animals as
large as modern sheep and goats.
Despite
the large size and potential ferocity as an occasional predator
of other animals, Dinopithecus would have also
been prey for other
predators of the Pliocene. Perhaps first and foremost would be the
big cat Dinofelis,
a predator that is known to have not only attacked
and killed baboons, but also hominids. Even worse than this however
was the sabre-toothed
cat Machairodus
that had enlarged canines that
could have easily inflicted a mortal wound on a Dinopithecus.
In
addition to prehistoric big cats, relatives of modern crocodiles
such
as Crocodylus
thorbjarnarsoni were known to have grown to very
large
sizes with strong bites and armoured skin, making them easily capable
of tackling a Dinopithecus.
Perhaps
the greatest threat to Dinopithecus were the
emerging
hominids. The discovery of the fossils of some ninety giant baboons
referenced as giant Geladas (Theropithecus gelada)
found together
have been interpreted as being killed by the hominid Homo
erectus
sometime between four hundred thousand and seven hundred thousand years
ago. The baboons in these concentrations were mostly juvenile or
subadult, and not of mixed ages, leading to the suggestion that the
Homo erectus selectively killed baboons of these
ages. What is
unknown at the time however is if there was a wholesale slaughter of
these baboons, or if this was an accumulation over a period of time,
with perhaps one baboon being killed every few weeks or months, with
the remains building up over a period of years. If hominids were also
selectively killing juvenile Dinopithecus earlier
in the Pliocene,
then this might explain the eventual extinction of this baboon.
Further reading
- Butchering of Giant Geladas at an Acheulian Site - Current
Anthropology
Vol. 22, No. 3 (Jun., 1981), pp. 257-268 - Pat
Shipman, Wendy Bosler, Karen Lee Davis, Anna K. Behrensmeyer,
R. I. M. Dunbar, Colin P. Groves, Francis Thackeray,
Judith A. Harris Van Couvering & Richard K. Stucky -
1981.
- Paleoecological Reconstructions of the South African
Plio-Pleistocene Based on Low-Magnification Dental Microwear of Fossil
Primates - Anthropology Theses. Paper 19 - Brian D.
Carter - 2006.
- Inferring Plio-Pleistocene Southern African Biochronology From
Facial Affinities in Parapapio and Other Fossil Papionins -
American Journal of Anthropology 132: 163-174 - F. L.
Williams, R. R. Ackermann & S. R. Leigh -
2007.
- Body mass in Cercopithecidae (Primates, Mammalia): estimation and
scaling in extinct and extant taxa. - Anthropological Papers of the
American Museum of Natural History. 83: 1–159. - Eric Delson, Carl J.
Terranova, William J. Jungers, Eric J. Sargis, Nina G. Jablonski
& Paul C. Dechow - 2000.