The primary purpose of this dissertation is to show how knowledge of variation and asymmetry in incisor antimeric pairs of living great ape genera can be utilized as a “yardstick” for pairwise comparisons of isolated Miocene ape incisors from the two genera Kenyapithecus and Equatorius. The research was designed to help determine whether these fossil teeth could be reliably sorted into one or more than one genera. Both metric and morphological data for each class of incisor were recorded for Kenyapithecus and Equatorius, and resampling was performed to determine the significance of variation (p<.05) for each of 12 traits. Intraindividual antimeric differences in three genera of extant great apes were compared with interspecimen differences between Equatorius and Kenyapithecus. Pairwise comparisons using resampling sorted out which traits showed intraindividual significant variation and which could be used to discriminate between the two fossil genera under consideration. Based on these results, one can cautiously conclude the two fossil species within these genera are not different enough to justify placing them in two different genera.

Key words: Miocene; variation; fluctuating asymmetry; incisor morphology; Kenyapithecus africanus; Equatorius africanus; Kenyapithecus wickeri.