Pliobates

Pliobates Temporal range:
Pliobates fossils and reconstruction
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Infraclass:	Placentalia
Order:	Primates
Family:	†Pliopithecidae
Subfamily:	†Crouzeliinae
Genus:	†Pliobates Alba et al. 20151
Species:	†P. cataloniae
Binomial name
†Pliobates cataloniae Alba et al. 20151

Pliobates cataloniae is a primate from 11.6 million years ago, during the Iberian Miocene.¹²³ Originally described as a species of stem-ape that was found to be the sister taxon to gibbons and great apes like humans,¹ it was subsequently reinterpreted as a non-ape catarrhine belonging to the group Crouzeliidae within the superfamily Pliopithecoidea on the basis of discovery of new dental remains with crouzeliid synapomorphies.⁴

Its anatomy is gibbon-like; prior to this discovery, it was assumed that the ancestral ape bauplan was robust like Proconsul.⁵ This species has mosaic characteristics of primitive, monkey-like features and the more derived ape characteristics; however, even when originally described it wasn't interpreted as a direct ancestor of modern apes but rather a side-branch that retained the ancestral morphotype and was thus placed in its own family Pliobatidae.⁶ Its subsequent placement within Pliopithecoidea indicates that it was convergent with apes in elbow and wrist morphology.⁴

Based on the morphology of its ulna, the methods of locomotion of Pliobates consisted of above-branch quadrupedalism and eclectic climbing, along with suspensory behaviours resembling those of modern spider monkeys.⁷