REVISED CLASSIFICATION FOR MAKAPANIA BROOMI WELLS AND COOKE (BOVIDAE, MAMMALIA)

Abstract

Details of skull morphology, particularly of the basioccipital, show that Makapania broomi from the Makapansgat Limeworks Quarry, Transvaal belongs to the tribe Ovibovini, and is very like Megalovis latifrons Schaub, best known from the later Villafranchian of Seneze, France. The Ovibovini have only two living species, but in the Pliocene and early Pleistocene they must have been more widespread than hitherto suspected. Makapania broomi is the first clear record from Africa south of the Sahara of a fossil member of the Eurasian and North American subfamily Caprinae.