Sivapithecus indicus

Sivapithecus indicus is one of the three species generally recognised in Sivapithecus, a genus of extinct Miocene apes whose name means Shiva's Ape and whose remains come from the Sivalik Hills of the Indian subcontinent. Its fossils date from about 12.5 million to 10.5 million years ago, the earliest range of the three species. The genus was about 1.5 metres in body length, similar in size to a modern orangutan, and resembled a chimpanzee in most respects but had a face closer to that of an orangutan. The shape of its wrists and its body proportions suggest that it spent a significant amount of its time on the ground as well as in trees, and its large canines and heavy molars suggest a diet of relatively tough food such as seeds and savannah grasses. Specimens once placed in Ramapithecus are now considered by most researchers to belong to Sivapithecus, and any species of the genus may have been an ancestor of the modern orangutans.