REVISION OF DRYOPITHECUS-BRANCOI SCHLOSSER, 1901 BASED ON THE FOSSIL HOMINOID MATERIAL FROM RUDABANYA

The goal of this paper is to clarify the taxonomic relationship among dryopithecine specimens from central Europe, and in particular, from the Hungarian locality of Rudabánya. To this end, Dryopithecus brancoi, a valid nomen given to a single M3 from Salmendingen (Schlosser, 1901), is compared to all other Dryopithecus M3 specimens (from France, Spain and Hungary). Based on the currently available evidence, D. brancoi is found to share several characters exclusively with specimens from Rudabánya, and to be distinguished from D. fontani, D. laietanus and D. crusafonti. Given this pattern, the hominoid taxa identified at Rudabánya are synonymized here with D. brancoi. Because the Rudabánya material is much more abundant than the Salmendingen material, we propose a redefinition of D. brancoi based primarily on the sample from Rudabánya, which is thus included in the hypodigm of D. brancoi. © 1993 Academic Press. All rights reserved.