The most well-known fossil genus of Ponginae is " Sivapithecus ", consisting of several species from 12.5 million to 8.5 million years ago.
12.
The discoverer, G . Edward Lewis, claimed that it was distinct from Sivapithecus, as the jaw was more like a human's than any other fossil ape then known, a claim revived in the 1960s.
13.
The first pongine genera appear in the Miocene, " Sivapithecus " and " Khoratpithecus ", six or seven million years before evidence of orangutans was found from Pleistocene south-east Asia and southern China.
14.
Like " Sivapithecus ", " Dryopithecus " was suspensory, had a large brain and a delayed development; but, unlike the former, it had a gracile jaw with thinly enameled molars and suspensory forelimbs.
15.
Siwalik specimens once assigned to the genus " Ramapithecus " are now considered by most researchers to belong to one or more species of " Sivapithecus " . " Ramapithecus " is no longer regarded as a likely ancestor of humans.
16.
It was originally thought to represent two distinct species, " Sivapithecus yunnanensis ", thought to be an ancestor of " Pongo " ( orangutans ), and " Ramapithecus lufengensis ", thought to be an early human ancestor.
17.
In the 1970s, he was a co-discoverer, in the Potwar Plateau of Pakistan, of a nearly complete skull subsequently described as belonging to " Sivapithecus indicus ", an extinct Late Miocene great ape, on which he published several papers.
18.
The recognition in the 1980s that " " Ramapithecus " " fossils were females of " Sivapithecus " led to the creation of the new genus and species " Lufengpithecus lufengensis " to accommodate the large collection of hominoid fossils recovered at Lufeng in the 1970s.
19.
Results indicates that the corpus of juvenile mandible of " Lufengpithecus " possessed the basic structural framework of the adult mandible of same species and other species such as " Sivapithecus, Australopithecus ", early " Homo ", but possess a different framework from modern humans.
20.
A humerus and ulnar shaft from Kleinhadersdorf in Austria have also been referred to this genus by palaeontologist David R . Begun ( 2002 ), although Begun ( 1992 ) refers to them as " Austriacopithecus " and Szalay & Delson ( 1979 ) had referred them to " Sivapithecus darwini ".
