[1] The estimated age of Afropithecus is between 16 and 18 million years old, which was determined with radiometric dating techniques and the geological studies conducted by Broschetto and Brown from the University of Utah.

[2] Leakey suggested that A. turkanensis shared postcranial features with the species Proconsul nyanzae, which is the best known Miocene genus with literally hundreds of fossils having been found representing almost all skeletal elements, and sharing cranial features with Aegyptopithecus zeuxis and Heliopithecus which had two weathered molars that indicated a general distinction from known large early catarrhines, and later concluded that A. turkanenensis was a primitive, arboreal quadruped similar to P. nyanzae, and that A. turkanensis had primitive facial morphology and derived dental characteristics that would suggest a diet of hard fruits.

[3] The type specimen, KNM-WT 16999 is composed of a long distinct snout, the facial skeleton, frontal, much of the coronal structure, most of the sphenoid, and relatively unworn adult dentition; the right orbit (virtually complete), the right zygomatic, the pterygoid, most of the sphenoid and lesser wings, the maxilla and premaxilla, and adult dentition with procumbent incisors.

The surface on the right side maxilla and premaxilla along with the enamel on the right molars has been lost over time and has been replaced with calcite crystals, which only provide the general shape and not the details.

[1] Morphological analysis of the teeth and palate of Afropithecus suggests that it utilized a sclerocarpic foraging diet similar to members of Pitheciidae, in contrast to that of Morotopithecus.