Proconsul nyanzae is a species of fossil primate first discovered by Louis Leakey on Rusinga Island in 1942, which he published
in Nature in 1943. A joint publication of Wilfrid Le Gros Clark and Louis Leakey in 1951, "The Miocene Hominoidea of East
Africa", first defines Proconsul nyanzae. In 1965 Simons and Pilbeam replaced Proconsul with Dryopithecus, using the same
species names. In that same year, Louis defined Kenyapithecus africanus on seven fossils from Rusinga Island.