J Hum Evol
Kunming Natural History Museum of Zoology, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan 650223, China.
Published: October 2020
Apart from a juvenile hominoid, the locality of Shuitangba (southwestern China, 6.5-6.0 Ma) has yielded a mandible and proximal femur attributed to the colobine genus Mesopithecus. A complete colobine calcaneus also accompanies this material, but its association with the other Mesopithecus material remains to be confirmed. These fossil elements are very important as they represent the oldest known colobines from East Asia, extend the dispersal of Mesopithecus to southwestern China, and underscore its close affinities and potential ancestry to the odd-nosed colobines. The present article focuses on the functional morphology of this complete calcaneus to reconstruct the positional habits, infer the paleocology, and understand the dispersal patterns of this fossil colobine. The studied characters corroborate the attribution of this element to colobines and support potential affinities with the Mesopithecus remains of the same locality. Functionally, characters such as the long and narrow tuber calcanei, the short proximal calcaneal region, and the relatively extended and long and narrow proximal calcaneoastragalar facet appear to enable habitual pedal flexion with conjunct inversion that accommodate the foot on diversely oriented and differently sized arboreal substrates. On the other hand, the relatively short distal calcaneal region is functionally related to (mainly terrestrial) quadrupedal activities, wherein thrust and rapid flexion are required. This combination of characters suggests that the Shuitangba colobine could move at ease on arboreal substrates and was also able to occasionally use terrestrial substrates. The potential affinities of this calcaneus to Mesopithecus and its positional profile most likely imply an eastward migration via forested corridors. In Shuitangba, this fossil colobine could trophically and positionally exploit a wide range of habitats successfully coexisting with resident hominoids.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2020.102866 | DOI Listing |
J Hum Evol
July 2021
Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University, Anthropology 225, TAMU 4352, College Station, TX, 77843, USA. Electronic address:
The postcranium of a large-bodied colobine monkey attributed to Paracolobus mutiwa from the site of Lomekwi, West Turkana, Kenya, is described. The partial skeleton (KNM-WT 16827) was recovered from locality LO 1, dated to 2.58-2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Hum Evol
October 2020
Kunming Natural History Museum of Zoology, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan 650223, China.
Apart from a juvenile hominoid, the locality of Shuitangba (southwestern China, 6.5-6.0 Ma) has yielded a mandible and proximal femur attributed to the colobine genus Mesopithecus.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Hum Evol
November 2010
Department of Anthropology, Yale University, P.O. Box 208277, New Haven, CT 06520-8277, USA.
Miocene to Pleistocene fossiliferous sediments in the Tugen Hills span the time period from at least 15.5 Ma to 0.25 Ma, including time periods unknown or little known elsewhere in Africa.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAm J Phys Anthropol
February 1992
Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, John Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21205.
The traditional focus on morphological rather than mechanical units has obscured some significant functional differences in the hindlimbs of primates. This paper examines the allometric and biomechanical basis for some distinctive proportional differences among pairs of morphological units in the hindlimb, and especially the foot, of cercopithecid primates. Five major conclusions are reached.
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