Functional morphological similarities in the locomotor skeleton of miocene catarrhines and platyrrhine monkeys.
Noncercopithecid Miocene catarrhines share numerous features of their postcranial skeleton with extant platyrrhines, particularly pitheciines, cebines, and atelines. For any given fossil taxon, these similarities do not extend throughout the skeleton. Also there may be similarities to more than one platyrrhine taxon, within different parts of the postcranium or even within a single bone. These similarities are of two types. Features that are most likely to be retentions from the primitive anthropoid condition are present in many Miocene taxa. They are part of functional complexes associated with the performance of quadrupedal and possibly orthograde climbing activities. Other features, especially present in nonhominoid primitive catarrhines, are related to the performance of suspensory behaviors, and reflect a partial convergence on the suspensory ateline condition.
Rose
M D
MD
Department of Anatomy, New Jersey Medical School, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Newark 07103, USA.
D000818:Animals; D000882:Haplorhini / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology; D008124:Locomotion / Q000502:physiology*; D012863:Skeleton