Oreopithecus bambolii
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| Swamp Ape{{#if:{{{status|}}}| {{#switch:{{{status}}}
| se|SECURE|Secure|secure=Conservation status: Secure | dom|DOMESTICATED|Domesticated|domesticated=Conservation status: Domesticated | data|DD|DATA=Conservation status: Data deficient | lr=Conservation status: Lower risk | lc|LR/LC|LR/lc|lr/lc|LRLC|LRlc|lrlc=Conservation status: Lower risk (lc) | LR/nt|lr/nt|LRNT|LRnt|lrnt|NT|nt=Conservation status: Lower risk (nt) | LR/cd|lr/cd|LRCD|LRcd|lrcd=Conservation status: Lower risk (cd) | vu=Conservation status: Vulnerable | en=Conservation status: Endangered | cr=Conservation status: Critical | ew=Conservation status: Extinct in the wild | ex|EXTINCT|Extinct|extinct=Conservation status: Extinct{{#if:{{{extinct|}}}| ({{{extinct}}}) }} | Fossil|fossil=Conservation status: Fossil | pre=Conservation status: Prehistoric | Text|TEXT=Conservation status: See text | {{{status}}} }}}}Template:Subtext}|contents=Fossil range: {{{fossil_range|}}} }} |
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The Swamp Ape (Oreopithecus bambolii) is a prehistoric primate species from the Miocene epoch whose fossils have been found in Italy (Tuscany and Sardinia) and in East Africa.
Their habitat appears to have been swampy, and not savanna or forest. The fossils are sufficient to indicate that there was a lumbar curve, implying some adaptation to upright walking, in distinction to otherwise similar species known from the same period. Since the fossils have been dated to about 8 million years ago, this represents an unusually early appearance of upright posture, lending itself to the aquatic ape theory of human bipedalism, especially in conjunction with other evidence of a possible earlier date for the evolution of hominids, such as the six to seven million year old, very human-looking Toumai skull. How adapted for bipedal walking it was is not known, but their fingers and arms also seems to show adapapations for climbing and swinging.
Some have suggested this requires a revision of the current consensus on the timing of bipedality in human developmental history, but there is little agreement on this point among paleontologists. Among other things, its foot was birdlike and had an anatomy different from the early bipedal human ancestors. For the moment, this species is a considerable anomaly, and may represent an independent development of bipedality other than that which led to humans, and which came to a dead end some time later. More fossil discoveries may help settle this and other questions. Likewise, the taxonomic placement of Oreopithecus is unsettled. Some scientists place it as a very early catarrhine, shortly after the split from the New World monkeys. Other scientists place it in Hominidae just before the split of the orangutans from the rest of the great apes, as is shown here.
They evolved in isolation with other animals for at least two million years on an island in the Mediterranean where Tuscany in Italy is found today. There were no large predators on the island and the apes didn't have any natural enemies. Later, probably during the ice age when the sea level dropped all over the world, a land bridge emerged and connected the island with the mainland. New species, among them large predators, were then free to invade this isolated environment where animals like the Swamp Ape were easy prey. Soon this strange primate, as well as other creatures on the island, was gone forever. A parallel to what happened when the land bridge between North America and South America joined the two continents.
The scientific name Oreopithecus quickly inspired the commonly used though unofficial name for the species among paleontologists, Cookie Monster. The true etymology, however, is rather more mundane: it comes from the Greek "oros" and "pithekos" meaning "hill-ape".