Morphometric comparison of semicircular canals of Parapapio broomi and P. jonesi from Sterkfontein, South Africa
- Authors: Thackeray, J. Francis , Dumoncel, Jean , Gommery, Dominique , Lazarus Kgasi , Tawane, Gaokgatlhe M. , De Bee, Frikkie C. , Hoffman, Jakobus W. , Bam, Lunga C.
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Parapapio , Baboon , Holotype
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/401216 , uj:33519 , Citation: Thackeray J.F, Dumoncel J, Gommery D, Kgasi L, Tawane G.M, De Beer F.C. et al. Morphometric comparison of semicircular canals of Parapapio broomi and P. jonesi from Sterkfontein, South Africa. S Afr J Sci. 2019;115(1/2), Art. #a0303, 3 pages. https://doi.org/10.17159/ sajs.2019/a0303
- Description: Abstract: As an anatomist working on modern baboons at the University of the Witwatersrand, Trevor Jones1 described a partial cranium of a Plio-Pleistocene baboon (Sts 564) from the Sterkfontein Caves in the Cradle of Humankind. He named it Parapapio broomi, a new genus and species in honour of Dr Robert Broom who was based at the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria from 1934 until his death in 1951 (the museum is now referred to as the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History). Jones was a student of Professor Raymond Dart who had encouraged Broom to work at Sterkfontein after this site had yielded fossil baboons similar to those that had been found at Taung2 – the site from which the holotype specimen of Australopithecus africanus was discovered in 19243. It is now recognised that Parapapio and hominins are often found together in pene-contemporaneous Plio- Pleistocene deposits in Africa. The first hominin to be found at Sterkfontein (TM 1511, A. africanus) was discovered in 1936, soon after the initial discovery of fossil baboons at the site by Trevor Jones and two of Dart’s other students from the University of the Witwatersrand.
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First fossil Agama lizard discovered in the Cradle of Humankind (Bolt’s Farm Cave System, South Africa)
- Authors: Vilakazi, Nonhlanhla , Gommery, Dominique , Kgasi, Lazarus
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Plio-Pleistocene , Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site , Agamidae
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/476374 , uj:43007 , Citation: VILAKAZI, N., GOMMERY, D. and KGASI, L., 2020. First fossil Agama lizard discovered in the Cradle of Humankind (Bolt’s Farm Cave System, South Africa). Annals of the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History 9: 000–000.
- Description: Abstract: Plio-Pleistocene sites in the Cradle of HumankindWorld Heritage Site (recognized by UNESCO), including Taung and Makapansgat Limeworks, all in South Africa, have not only yielded a rich collection of macrofauna but also an abundance of microfauna. Even though the extant small lizards are highly diverse with 23 families and 350 species in southern Africa, very few fossil remains have been studied. This is probably due in part to difficulties in accessing comparative osteological collections (the comparative material is usually rarely completely prepared, rendering anatomical study almost impossible). In 2016 an incomplete mandible with acrodont dentition was excavated in Brad Pit A (Bolt’s FarmKarst System) by the Hominid Origins and Past Environment Research Unit team.Upon inspection, the fossil resembled agamids, even though it lacked the anterior pleurodont dentition present in Agamids. The fossil specimen can only be identified as Agama sp.due to its fragmentary state, but it represents the first fossil of this genus to be reported from the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site.
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