Home - News ( United States | United Kingdom | Italy | Germany ) - Football scores

Showing content from https://link.springer.com/doi/10.1007/978-1-4684-8854-8_12 below:

New Postcranial Fossils of Proconsul africanus and Proconsul nyanzae

Our understanding of early Miocene hominoid postcranial material has been built upon a fossil record that consists, for the most part, of unassociated fragments of different individuals from different sites. Although many skeletal parts have been known from small to large Proconsul species, major problems have arisen due to lack of knowledge of limb proportions and to difficulties in assigning postcrania to species based on teeth and jaws. Because of this our viewpoint has been heavily biased by interpretations based on the associated partial skeleton of P. africanus (Napier and Davis, 1959). Recently two things happened to change this situation. The first was the recognition that more parts of the associated skeleton, KNM-RU 2036, were still in blocks of matrix in the National Museums of Kenya and that more are likely still to be on the site, locality R114, Rusinga Island. This has led to the recognition of many more parts of this individual and their preparation from their matrix. Importantly, much of the hindlimb skeleton is now known. The second was the finding of the major part of an associated foot and leg skeleton that can be reasonably attributed to P. nyanzae at site R1–3, Rusinga Island. These new finds allow us to do several things:

1. 1.

   The limb proportions of P. africanus can be almost perfectly calculated for one individual.

2. 2.

   The estimate of body weight for this individual is now on a much sounder foundation than before.

3. 3.

   The hypotheses concerning locomotor adaptations that were based on the forelimb can now be checked against the hindlimb.

4. 4.

   The body weight of P. nyanzae can be estimated, based on the size of the leg and foot skeleton and other reasonably attributed parts.

5. 5.

   Comparisons can be made between the two species.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

• Bourliere, F. 1963. Observations on the ecology of some large African mammals, in: African Ecology and Human Evolution ( F. C. Howell and F. Bourliere, eds.), pp. 43–64, Wenner-Gren Foundation, New York.

  Google Scholar 

• Gingerich, P. D. 1977. Correlation of tooth size and body size in living hominoid primates, with a note on relative brain size in Aegyptopithecus and Proconsul. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 47: 395–398.

  Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

• Le Gros Clark, W. E., and Leakey, L. S. B. 1951. The Miocene Hominoidea of East Africa. Fossil Mammals of Africa (Br. Mus. Nat. Hist.) 1: 1–117.

  Google Scholar 

• Napier, J. R., and Davis, P. R. 1959. The forelimb skeleton and associated remains of Proconsul africanus. Fossil Mammals of Africa (Br. Mus. Nat. Hist. ) 16: 1–70.

  Google Scholar 

• Napier, J. R., and Napier, P. H. 1967. A Handbook of Living Primates, Academic, London. 456 pp.

  Google Scholar 

• Pickford, M. 1981. Preliminary Miocene mammalian biostratigraphy for Western Kenya. J. Hum. Evol. 10: 73–98.

  Article  Google Scholar 

• Pickford, M., and Andrews, P. 1981. The Tinderet Miocene sequence in Kenya. J. Hum. Evol. 10: 11–34.

  Article  Google Scholar 

• Smith, R. J. 1981. On the definition of variables in studies of primate dental allometry. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 55: 323–329.

  Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

• Van Couvering, J. A. 1972. Geology of Rusinga Island and Correlation of the Kenya Mid-Tertiary fauna, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Cambridge. 208 pp.

  Google Scholar 

• Van Couvering, J. A., and Miller, J. A. 1969. Miocene stratigraphy and age determinations, Rusinga Island, Kenya. Nature (Loud.) 221: 628–632.

  Article  Google Scholar 

• Verdcourt, B. 1963. The Miocene non-marine Mollusca of Rusinga Island, Lake Victoria and other localities in Kenya. Palaeontographica A 121: 1–37.

  Google Scholar 

• Walker, A., and Rose, M. D. 1968. Fossil hominoid vertebrae from the Miocene of Uganda. Nature (Lond.) 217: 980.

  Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

• Whitworth, T. 1953. A contribution to the geology of Rusinga Island. Q. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 109: 75–96.

  Article  Google Scholar 

• Whybrow, P. J., and Andrews, P. 1978. Restoration of the holotype of Proconsul nyanzae. Foies Primatol. 30: 115–125.

  Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

1. Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, The Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, 21205, USA

   A. C. Walker

2. National Museum of Kenya, P.O. Box 40658, Nairobi, Kenya

   M. Pickford

1. A. C. Walker
2. M. Pickford

1. Department of Paleontology (temporary research appointment), University of California, 94720, Berkeley, California, USA

   Russell L. Ciochon

2. Department of Anthropology, Southern Illinois University, 62901, Carbondale, Illinois, USA

   Robert S. Corruccini

© 1983 Plenum Press, New York

Walker, A.C., Pickford, M. (1983). New Postcranial Fossils of Proconsul africanus and Proconsul nyanzae . In: Ciochon, R.L., Corruccini, R.S. (eds) New Interpretations of Ape and Human Ancestry. Advances in Primatology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-8854-8_12

• .RIS
• .ENW
• .BIB

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-8854-8_12

• Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

• Print ISBN: 978-1-4684-8856-2

• Online ISBN: 978-1-4684-8854-8

• eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

RetroSearch is an open source project built by @garambo | Open a GitHub Issue

Search and Browse the WWW like it's 1997 | Search results from DuckDuckGo

HTML: 3.2 | Encoding: UTF-8 | Version: 0.7.4