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Résumé Depuis plus d’un siècle, les recherches à Madagascar ont permis de découvrir 17 espèces de lémuriens éteints, tous de grande taille. Ils pratiquaient des locomotions qui ne se rencontrent plus aujourd’hui chez les lémuriens actuels. Certains présentaient des convergences morphologiques avec des Catarrhiniens ou d’autres groupes de Mammifères. Peu de choses étaient connues pour le Nord-Ouest...
This paper presents a new aspect in studies of dental morphology based exclusively on 3D topographical analysis. Our method was applied to a set of 20 unworn upper second molars belonging to seven extant catarrhine genera. From a geometrical analysis of the polygonal grid representing the shape of each tooth, we propose a 3D dataset that provides a detailed characterization of the enamel morphology...
Non-human primates are commonly used as comparative models to investigate the evolutionary origins of habitual bipedal walking. After almost a century of research in the field of behaviour and functional anatomy, the need for integrative analyses is being widely discussed. In that perspective, the purpose of this note is to report on the available literature on quantitative behavioural and experimental...
Résumé Au regard de leur proximité phylogénétique avec l’Homme actuel, les primates non-humains sont considérés comme des modèles privilégiés pour rechercher les précurseurs de certaines caractéristiques humaines qui auraient pu exister chez nos ancêtres communs. Dans cet article, je vais essayer de montrer l’intérêt de travailler, non pas sur un « modèle » primate en particulier, mais sur une approche...
Recent discoveries of taxonomically challenging Southeast Asian dwarf hominins from Liang Bua in Indonesia and the Callao Cave in the Philippines have enabled us to investigate the general tendency towards dwarfism or gigantism already observed in endemic insular animals. One current hypothesis suggests that the pygmy human phenotype is the result of evolutionary selection in rainforest environments...
This note introduces the types of models used in functional morphological research in order to clarify certain semantic issues and to present some examples of the use of extant model species to contribute to our understanding of bipedal locomotion. The existing models fall into two broad categories: “abstraction models” are simplifications/abstractions of living organisms, whereas “comparative models”...
Résumé La perception gustative permet d’orienter les choix alimentaires des primates dans les différentes niches écologiques où ils ont évolué. Les possibilités de choix sont cependant limitées par le poids corporel des différentes espèces, selon des relations allométriques dont nous présentons les caractéristiques chez les primates strepsirrhiniens et haplorrhiniens comparativement aux autres ordres...
Our research aims to further knowledge on the adaptive significance of reproductive processes in female primates, using a comparative approach. Our studies in semi-free ranging olive baboons (Papio anubis) show that sampled baboon mothers resume cycling and reconceive when their infants reach a relatively constant threshold mass, as predicted from interspecies life history theory. We suggest that...
This note illustrates the value of studying non-human primates, especially quadrupedal primates, in order to investigate the origins of human bipedalism. Two distinct hypotheses postulate that hominins and African great apes share a common ancestor predominantly engaged in specialized forms of locomotion, i.e., arboreal orthogrady (climbing or arboreal bipedalism) on the one hand and semiterrestrial...
The intensification of agriculture is regarded as a major transition in human prehistory that affected key aspects of the physical and cultural environments over time. One of the ways to measure human adaptation to this transition is through sexual dimorphism in body size. Previous bioarchaeological studies have shown that when the difference in body size between males and females decreases over time,...
Résumé Les modalités d’acquisition des comportements alimentaires chez les primates défient les explications théoriques issues de la théorie des histoires de vie. Comment expliquer que chez l’homme, par exemple, l’enfant soit sevré plus rapidement que les jeunes des autres espèces anthropoïdes ? Afin d’appréhender les déterminants du développement des comportements alimentaires chez les primates,...
Résumé Les restes d’hominidés1 fossiles sont généralement trouvés dans des niveaux géologiques contenant aussi des Cercopithecoidea. Ils ont donc partagé plus ou moins les ressources des mêmes milieux. En Afrique du Sud, la biodiversité de ces Cercopithecoidea était aussi importante qu’en Afrique de l’Est. Dans le Cradle of Humankind, il existe de nombreux sites pliopléistocènes. Bolt’s Farm est une...
Growth studies on human and nonhuman primates contribute to a range of research topics such as somatic growth and the establishment of charts for growth and skeletal maturity, and therefore provide a valuable evolutionary perspective. Longitudinal studies, especially long-term ones, provide the most accurate data to assess the factors that influence growth and development, and to construct growth...
For a long time, humans (genus Homo) were thought to be the only mammalian species capable of dextrous manual grasping. However, grasping is widespread among tetrapods, and among primates, it is associated with a wide range of morphological, dietary and locomotor variation. From an evolutionary perspective, this prompts several questions: is the origin and evolution of grasping in primates derived...
Communication in primates is based on multiple elements of signals, often expressed in different modalities. While some individual primate signals are relatively well described for a particular cue (e.g. copulation calls, sexual swellings) or for one specific dimension of a signal (e.g. the size of sexual swellings), few studies have simultaneously investigated the role of multiple signals and cues...
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