The first specimen,O. macedoniensis was discovered by French palaeontologists Louis de Bonis and Jean Melentis in 1977,[3] andO. turkae by Turkish team led by Erksin Savaş Güleç in 2007.[2] For a long time it was considered as similar (synonymous) toGraecopithecus and member of the genusSivapithecus,[4] which is something today contested.
Based onO. macedoniensis' dental and facialanatomy, it has been suggested thatOuranopithecus was actually adryopithecine. However, it is probably more closely related to thePonginae.[5][6] Some researchers considerO. macedoniensis to be the last common ancestor of humans (hominins) and the other apes,[7] and a forerunner toaustralopithecines and humans,[8] although this is very controversial and not widely accepted. It is true thatO. macedoniensis shares derived features with some earlyhominins (such as the frontal sinus, a cavity in the forehead), but they are almost certainly not closely related species.[9]
In 1984, British palaeontologists Peter Andrews and Lawrence B. Martin classifiedGraecopithecus andOuranopithecus as synonyms (same taxon) and treated them as members of the genusSivapithecus.[10][11] However, comparative analysis showed that there is not enough data to support the synonymy.[12]
When moreO. macedoniensis fossils were discovered[13] including part of the skull in the 1990s,[14] it became apparent thatO. macedoniensis andG. freybergi are distinct species. In the light of new data, in 1997, Australian palaeontologist David W. Cameron treatedGraecopithecus as a valid genus based on taxonomicpriority and renamedO. macedoniensis asGraecopithecus macedoniensis.[15][16] However, betterO. macedoniensis specimens were found[17] including a new speciesOuranopithecus turkae from Turkey[18] that warranted separation of the genus. Furthermore, a controversial paper in 2017 claimed thatGraecopithecus is more closely related to hominins than to other great apes,[19] which if true would clearly distinguish it fromOuranopithecus specimens. Separate genus for the two therefore continue to be generally adopted.[20][21][22]
^de Bonis, Louis; Koufos, George D. (2004). "Ouranopithecus and dating the splitting of extant hominoids".Comptes Rendus Palevol.3 (4):257–264.doi:10.1016/j.crpv.2004.04.002.
^de Bonis, Louis; et al. (1981). "Dental metric variation in early Hominids comparison betweenAustralopithecus afarensis andOuranopithecus macedoniensis".Comptes Rendus des Séances de l'Académie des Sciences. Serie III Sciences de la Vie.292:263–266.
^Andrews, Martin L. (1984). "The phylogenetic position ofGraeceopithecus freybergi Koenigswald".Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg.69:25–40.
^Koufos, George D.; de Bonis, Louis (2005). "The late Miocene HominoidsOuranopithecus andGraeceopithecus. Implications about their relationships and taxonomy".Annales de Paléontologie.91 (3):227–240.Bibcode:2005AnPal..91..227K.doi:10.1016/j.annpal.2005.05.001.
^Koufos, G. D. (1993). "Mandible of Ouranopithecus macedoniensis (Hominidae, Primates) from a new late miocene locality of Macedonia (Greece)".American Journal of Physical Anthropology.91 (2):225–234.doi:10.1002/ajpa.1330910208.PMID8317563.
^Ioannidou, Melania; Koufos, George D.; de Bonis, Louis; Harvati, Katerina (2019). "A new three-dimensional geometric morphometrics analysis of the Ouranopithecus macedoniensis cranium (Late Miocene, Central Macedonia, Greece)".American Journal of Physical Anthropology.170 (2):295–307.doi:10.1002/ajpa.23900.PMID31339568.S2CID198194561.
^Gilbert, Christopher C.; Pugh, Kelsey D.; Fleagle, John G. (2020), Prasad, Guntupalli V.R.; Patnaik, Rajeev (eds.), "Dispersal of Miocene Hominoids (and Pliopithecoids) from Africa to Eurasia in Light of Changing Tectonics and Climate",Biological Consequences of Plate Tectonics: New Perspectives on Post-Gondwana Break-up–A Tribute to Ashok Sahni, Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 393–412,doi:10.1007/978-3-030-49753-8_17,ISBN978-3-030-49753-8,S2CID229622942
