Earliest record of a parapithecid anthropoid from the Jebel Qatrani formation, Northern Egypt.

A fifth anthropoid (= anthropoidean, simian or simiiform) genus and species from the late Eocene Fayum Quarry L-41, Abuqatrania basiodontos gen. et sp. nov., further augments the already remarkable primate diversity from this locality and provides the first convincing extension of the enigmatic family Parapithecidae into the oldest productive vertebrate fossil-bearing stratum of the Jebel Qatrani Formation. A. basiodontos exhibits no clear autapomorphies nor any apomorphies that are shared exclusively with any other parapithecid species, and it is most parsimoniously interpreted as the sister taxon of a Qatrania-Parapithecus-Apidium clade. Reevaluation of two contemporaries of A. basiodontos, Serapia and Arsinoea, suggests that neither genus should be ranked as a basal parapithecid. Serapia is more derived than primitive parapithecids in the morphology of the lower fourth premolar and exhibits greater overall similarity to Proteopithecus in cusp placement and the shape and proportions of its lower teeth; accordingly, we place Serapia in the family Proteopithecidae. Arsinoea is much more problematic and does not fit well with any hitherto known Afro-Arabian anthropoid group; we place this genus in a new anthropoid family, Arsinoeidae. Copyright 2002 S. Karger AG, Basel