Dryopithecus
Group Placental mammals
Date Late Miocene
Size 60cm long
Location Africa, Europe, Asia
Dryopithecus was an ape the size of a monkey with a build like a chimpanzee. Its body proportions, and the shape of the limbs and wrists, show that it could walk on all fours like a chimpanzee. The limbs also suggest that it spent most of its life in trees, swinging like a gibbon. Dryopithecus had molars with thin enamel suggesting it ate soft fruit, and the same pattern of cusps as the great apeat apes and hominids.