Miocene small-bodied anthropoid primates from Africa and Eurasia are generally considered to precede the divergence between the two groups of extant catarrhines—hominoids (apes and humans) and Old World monkeys—and are thus viewed as more primitive than the stem ape Proconsul. Here we describe Pliobates cataloniae gen. et sp. nov., a small-bodied (4 to 5 kilograms) primate from the Iberian Miocene (11.6 million years ago) that displays a mosaic of primitive characteristics coupled with multiple cranial and postcranial shared derived features of extant hominoids. Our cladistic analyses show that Pliobates is a stem hominoid that is more derived than previously described small catarrhines and Proconsul. This forces us to reevaluate the role played by small-bodied catarrhines in ape evolution and provides key insight into the last common ancestor of hylobatids (gibbons) and hominids (great apes and humans).

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This work has been funded by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación-European Regional Development Fund of the European Union (CGL2016-76431-P and CGL2017-82654-P, AEI/FEDER-UE), the Generalitat de Catalunya (CERCA Program and consolidated research groups 2017 SGR 086 and 2017 SGR 116), and French CNRS. Fieldwork at ACM was defrayed by CESPA Gestión de Residuos S.A.U. Microtomographic scans of the fossil specimens were realized at the Multidisciplinary Laboratory of the "Abdus Salam" International Centre for Theoretical Physics (under the auspices of the SAPIENS Project funded by the Centro Fermi). We thank S. Llàcer for image processing, S. Calzada for the loan of specimens housed at the MGSB, C. Argot for access to specimens housed at the MNHN, N. Mémoire and M. Landreau for access to specimens housed at the MHNB, P. Bayle for the CT scans of the Harlé specimens, J. Braga and the MNHN for access to CT scans of HGP1, and Eileen Westwig for access to extant comparative material from the under her care at the AMNH. We further acknowledge the collaboration of the Centre de Restauració i Interpretació Paleontològica (CRIP; Ajuntament dels Hostalets de Pierola) and the Servei d'Arqueologia i Paleontologia of the Generalitat de Catalunya. We thank the Editor