Fossil remains of animals now assigned to this genus, dated from 12.2 million years old[1] in the Miocene, have been found since the 19th century in the Sivalik Hills of the Indian subcontinent as well as in Kutch.

Another find was made in Nepal on the bank of the Tinau River situated in Palpa District; a western part of the country in 1932.

In 1982, David Pilbeam published a description of a significant fossil find from Potwar Plateau, Pakistan, formed by a large part of the face and jaw of a Sivapithecus.

The shape of its wrists and general body proportions suggest that it spent a significant amount of its time on the ground, as well as in trees.

[7] It had large canine teeth, and heavy molars, suggesting a diet of relatively tough food, such as seeds and savannah grasses.

[7] Similarities to orangutans in what are chiefly jaw and partial skull fossils are a concave face with large zygomatic arch bones, narrow setting of eyes from each other, smoothness of nasal floor, and central incisor enlargement.