The first pongine genera appear in the
Miocene, Sivapithecus and Khoratpithecus,[4][5] six or seven million years before evidence of orangutans was found from
Pleistocene southeast Asia and southern China.[6] Ponginae may also include the genera Lufengpithecus, Ankarapithecus, and Gigantopithecus. However, phylogenetic analysis in 2004, which originally found Lufengpithecus and Ankarapithecus to be most closely related to the orangutan, gave different results "under an analytical method that attempted to reduce stratigraphic incongruence",[7] instead placing them on the base of the stem of the African ape-human clade.[4]
Meganthropus was considered by the majority of paleoanthropologists as falling within the variation of Homo erectus. However, a study from 2019 of tooth morphology found Meganthropus a valid genus of non-hominin hominid ape, most closely related to Lufengpithecus[8]
The most well-known fossil genus of Ponginae is Sivapithecus, consisting of several species from 12.5 million to 8.5 million years ago. It differs from orangutans in dentition and postcranial morphology.[7]
^Bacon, A. M.; The Long, V. (2001). "The first discovery of a complete skeleton of a fossil orang-utan in a cave of the Hoa Binh Province, Vietnam". Journal of Human Evolution. 41 (3): 227–241.
doi:
10.1006/jhev.2001.0496.
PMID11535001.