Oreopithecus

A second case concerns 7- to 8-million-year-old Oreopithecus, designated a hominid about 50 years ago.

Some extinct primates, such as Oreopithecus bambolii, evolved outside of the human line but nevertheless possessed similarly hominin-like traits, which, the authors write, "encourage researchers to generate erroneous assumptions about evolutionary relationships."

But the researchers are quick to point out that other ancient non-hominin species, including Oreopithecus and Ouranopithecus, also came to have reduced canine teeth, "presumably as a result of parallel shifts in dietary behavior in response to changing ecological conditions," the researchers suggest in their article.

Oreopithecus lived in Miocene-period marshes, which are now coal areas around Grosseto, in central Italy.

But in 1949 Hurzeler became convinced that Oreopithecus was a higher type.