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Developmental parallelism in primates
Affiliations- Department of Normal Anatomy, Centre of Biostructural Research, Medical University of Warsaw, Poland, Poland
- Institute of Mathematics, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland, Poland
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Abstract
The authors examined a large random sample of skulls from two species of macaques: rhesus monkeys and cynomolgus monkeys. The skulls were measured, divided into age and sex groups and thoroughly analysed using statistical methods. The analysis shows that skulls of young rhesuses are considerably more domed, i.e. have better-developed neurocrania, than their adult counterparts. Male and female skulls, on the other hand, were found to be very similar, which means that sexual dimorphism of the rhesus macaque was suppressed. Both of these patterns are known from the human evolutionary pattern. No such parallelism to the development of Homo sapiens was found in the cynomolgus monkeys. The authors conclude that mosaic hominisation trends may have featured in the evolution of all primates. This would mean that apes were not a necessary step on the evolutionary way leading to the development of Homo sapiens, who may have started to evolve at an earlier stage of monkeys.
Abstract
The authors examined a large random sample of skulls from two species of macaques: rhesus monkeys and cynomolgus monkeys. The skulls were measured, divided into age and sex groups and thoroughly analysed using statistical methods. The analysis shows that skulls of young rhesuses are considerably more domed, i.e. have better-developed neurocrania, than their adult counterparts. Male and female skulls, on the other hand, were found to be very similar, which means that sexual dimorphism of the rhesus macaque was suppressed. Both of these patterns are known from the human evolutionary pattern. No such parallelism to the development of Homo sapiens was found in the cynomolgus monkeys. The authors conclude that mosaic hominisation trends may have featured in the evolution of all primates. This would mean that apes were not a necessary step on the evolutionary way leading to the development of Homo sapiens, who may have started to evolve at an earlier stage of monkeys.
Keywords
hominisation trends, sexual dimorphism, macaque craniometrics
About this articleTitle
Developmental parallelism in primates
Journal
Issue
Article type
Original article
Pages
295-300
Published online
2016-09-26
Page views
990
Article views/downloads
897
DOI
10.5603/FM.a2016.0055
Pubmed
Bibliographic record
Folia Morphol 2017;76(2):295-300.
Keywords
hominisation trends
sexual dimorphism
macaque craniometrics
Authors
Z. M. Sikorska-Piwowska
A. L. Dawidowicz
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