Egypt

Dr. Simons has been doing research for many years on early anthropoids and other vertebrate fossils from the only continuous sequence of fossiliferous continental middle to late Eocene and early Oligocene deposits on the Afro-Arabian landmass. The types of many important early anthropoids have been found in the region. These include the genera Propliopithecus, Aegyptopithecus, Parapithecus, Apidium, Oligopithecus, Catopithecus, Proteopithecus, Serapia, Qatrania, and Arsinoea.

Recently, the discovery of late middle Eocene sediments preserving terrestrial, semi-aquatic, and aquatic mammals in close proximity allows us to extend our paleontological efforts into a very poorly documented interval of Afro-Arabian mammalian evolution. Despite very limited collecting time last year, these sediments have already produced remains of small placental mammals, and as such we expect that focused work at this new level will provide abundant new data on patterns of early anthropoid evolution well prior to the deposition of the extremely productive late Eocene Fayum Quarry L-41.

Remarkably, the late Eocene Quarry L-41 continues to produce previously unknown mammalian taxa, and focused excavation at a specific fossiliferous level within the quarry has now resulted in the discovery of numerous associations of dental and post-cranial remains of anthropoid and non-anthropoid taxa that have allowed for the sort of confident taxonomic allocations that are so rare in vertebrate paleontology. The locality is notable since it is the site of the oldest partial associations of anthropoid skeletons, and the only source for the recovery of Eocene anthropoid skulls.