Dryopithecinae

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A subfamily of extinct Miocene apes whose fossil remains show features linking them to both early apes and later primates
2. An extinct group of Miocene primates classified as a subfamily, known from fossils found mainly in Africa and Europe
3. The taxonomic subfamily of fossil apes that lived during the Miocene epoch and are considered ancestral to later great apes

Etymology: Dryopithecinae is a subfamily name coined by scientists, not an ancient word, and its parts reveal how it was built. The second element, "pithecus," comes from Greek "pithekos," meaning "ape," while the first, "dryo-," comes from Greek "drys," meaning "oak" or "tree." The name therefore means roughly "oak-ape," a label that was applied to the fossil genus Dryopithecus, first described in 1856 by the French naturalist Edouard Lartet from remains found in southern France. Lartet named the genus for its apparent woodland habitat, and the subfamily name, with its "-inae" ending used for animal subfamilies, followed from that genus name. The surprise is that the name was attached to fossils whose identity was debated for over a century. Dryopithecines were long considered possible ancestors of humans and great apes, and the name came to cover a wide group of Miocene apes from Europe, Africa and Asia. Later discoveries and reclassifications have shifted which species belong here, so the subfamily is now used more loosely than its original label suggests.