ABSTRACT
My study of the entire Taung sample is still incomplete, but I continue to infer that the small Papio from Taung and ST 4 is a distinct species Papio izodi, while the comparably sized population (P. angusticeps) known best from Kromdraai and the nearby Cooper’s A (COA) site is morphologically and probably taxonomically closer to the living P. hamadryas kindae (see Fig. 21.1). About 120 Taung cercopithecids are now known from the following collections: University of the Witwatersrand Anatomy Department (20), Bernard Price Institute (2), South African Museum (18), Transvaal Museum (29) and the University of California Museum of Paleontology (50, but some matrix is unprepared). Of these, three partial maxillae (all from the Transvaal Museum) are referred to a small cercopithecine, cf. Cercocebus or Parapapio; 25 crania and mandibles are allocated with reasonable certainty to Parapapio antiquus; 20 crania and jaws are identified as Papio izodi and the remainder (partial jaws, juvenile crania, neurocrania, endocasts, and postcranial elements) are as yet unallocated to taxon. The presence of the two common papionins in roughly equal numbers and in both types of matrix discerned in the Berkeley collection suggests that they were contemporaries throughout the span of time represented at Taung.
