In addition, a newly discovered scaphoid bone with a fusing os centrale provides further evidence about the nature of hominin hand evolution. ramidus ankle and hallux than previously recognized. The newly recovered fossils document a greater adaptation to bipedality in the Ar. ramidus of having a mixed locomotor adaptation of terrestrial bipedality and arboreal clambering, we broaden our understanding of the nature of its locomotor pattern by documenting better the function of the hip, ankle, and foot. While we reinforce the original functional interpretations of Ar. ramidus fossils from the Gona Project study area, Ethiopia, that includes a fragmentary but informative partial skeleton (GWM67/P2) and additional isolated manual remains. Here, we present the results of an analysis of additional early Pliocene Ar. ramidus locomotion has been collected from the Aramis area of the Middle Awash Research Project in Ethiopia. To date, all of the fossil evidence of Ar. That chimpanzees and gorillas independently resorted to a more terrestrial existence, with their signature knuckle-walking pattern (Kivell and Schmitt, 2009 Simpson et al., 2018), further complicates our understanding of the evolution of their distinctive locomotor anatomy.įunctional analyses of the 4.4 Ma hominin Ardipithecus ramidus postcrania revealed a previously unknown and unpredicted locomotor pattern combining arboreal clambering and a form of terrestrial bipedality. As noted elsewhere (Latimer et al., 1981 Lovejoy et al., 2009d Sanders et al., 2010 White et al., 2015), the African apes have followed their own evolutionary adaptive history to high canopy foraging and their current locomotor anatomy is not that of our shared ancestor. Their sexual behavior also promotes food sharing, reduces tensions between males and females, and indeed matches our own in complexity and bonding importance.The absence of many modern ape traits in the Ardipithecus skeleton, including long medial metacarpals, reduced pollex with absence of the flexor pollicis longus tendon or its transfer to the index finger (Chapman, 1878, 1879 Straus, 1949), complex carpometacarpal articulations (Selby et al., 2016), forelimb elongation, hindlimb and tarsal shortening, and stiffening of the torso, especially the lumbopelvic region (Lovejoy and McCollum, 2010), reinforces our understanding of the degree of specialization by the extant large-bodied apes to high-canopy arboreality. But by pursuing sexual and quasi-sexual behavior during interactions - between individuals of any age or sex and with remarkable frequency - pygmy chimpanzees conceal the operation of rank and live peacefully together in large groups. In most primates, "competition" determines how individuals and groups subsist and leave descendants, and dominate or subordinate rank determines relationships between individuals. On the basis of individual survival, they are the most successful of the higher primates. As such, they are broadening our understanding of human and prehominid evolution. ![]() Pygmy chimpanzees are thought by some to be the closest living relatives to ancestral Homo Sapiens. Throughout, the author compares the two species, giving the reader an appreciation of their contrasting habits. There are also great differences in its behavior and its social and ecological relationships. ![]() ![]() ![]() It is smaller, darker, and slimmer, stands more upright, and is far more active sexually throughout its life. The pygmy chimpanzee differs taxonomically and physiologically from the familiar "common" chimpanzee seen in zoos and circuses. The Wamba Forest is the site of the longest continuous field study of the pygmy chimpanzee, and this book is a richly illustrated, first-hand account of the author's observations and experiences in Wamba from 1974 to 1985. Also, the rarest of the great apes, it is found only in the tropical forest region of central Zaire. Written by one of the world's principal specialists on the pygmy chimpanzee, this is the first comprehensive work on the last of the African great apes to be studied in the wild.
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