Trabecular bone volume fraction in Holocene and Late Pleistocene humans.

Research suggests that recent modern humans have gracile skeletons in having low trabecular bone volume fraction (BV/TV) and that gracilization of the skeleton occurred in the last 10,000 years. This has been attributed to a reduction in physical activity in the Holocene. However, there has been no thorough sampling of BV/TV in Pleistocene humans due to limited access to high resolution images of fossil specimens.

Trabecular architecture of the capitate and third metacarpal through ontogeny in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and gorillas (Gorilla gorilla).

Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) both knuckle-walk in adulthood but are known to develop their locomotor strategies differently. Using dentally defined age-groups of both Pan and Gorilla and behavioral data from the literature, this study presents an internal trabecular bone approach to better understand the morphological ontogeny of knuckle-walking in these taxa. Capitate and third metacarpal bones were scanned by μCT at 23-43 μm resolution with scaled volumes of interest placed centrally within the head of the capitate and base of the third metacarpal.

A molar microwear texture analysis of pitheciid primates.

Dental microwear textures have been examined for a broad range of extant primates to assess their efficacy for reconstructing diets of fossil species. To date though, no dental microwear texture data have been published for pitheciid molars, despite reported variation in degree of sclerocarpy and, by extension, the fracture properties of foods these platyrrhines eat. While all pitheciids eat hard or tough seeds, Chiropotes and Pithecia have been documented to consume more than Callicebus.