_Pliopithecus_, Gervais, C. R., xliii., p. 221 (1856); id., Zool. et Pal.
Franc., p. 8 (1859); Forsyth Major, Atti. Soc. Ital. Sc. Nat., xv., p. 82
(1872); Zittel, Handb. Palæont., p. 708 (1893).
_Protopithecus_, Ed. Lartet (nec Lund), Ann. Dep. Gers., 1851, p. 11.
This genus is very nearly allied to _Hylobates_, but differs from it in the
form and proportions of its teeth. The genus is based on a lower jaw found
in the Mid-Miocene of Central Europe. The incisors are small and long; the
canines strong and but little taller than the incisors; the pre-molars are
low, the anterior having one cusp, and the next two cusps; the molars have
two pairs of opposite short, thick, conical cusps, with an additional one
on the hind border, which enlarges into a talon in the hindmost of the set.
The type species, PLIOPITHECUS ANTIQUUS, which very closely resembles the
Gibbons, lived in the luxuriant forests of Sansan (Gers), and a variety of
{216}it, described as P. CHANTREI, Depéret, inhabited the woods round Mont
Ceindre. Remains of the same animals have been obtained in the Brown-coal
beds of Elgg, in Switzerland and Göriach, in Steyermark.
GENUS HYLOBATES (_suprà_, p. 148).
True Gibbons, indistinguishable from those now living in the island, have
been found in the caves of Borneo.
A finely preserved limb-bone, from the Eppelsheim beds of the Pliocene age,
has also been ascribed to a species of this genus.