Publication Date:
2004-11-20
Description:
We describe a partial skeleton with facial cranium of Pierolapithecus catalaunicus gen. et sp. nov., a new Middle Miocene (12.5 to 13 million years ago) ape from Barranc de Can Vila 1 (Barcelona, Spain). It is the first known individual of this age that combines well-preserved cranial, dental, and postcranial material. The thorax, lumbar region, and wrist provide evidence of modern ape-like orthograde body design, and the facial morphology includes the basic derived great ape features. The new skeleton reveals that early great apes retained primitive monkeylike characters associated with a derived body structure that permits upright postures of the trunk. Pierolapithecus, hence, does not fit the theoretical model that predicts that all characters shared by extant great apes were present in their last common ancestor, but instead points to a large amount of homoplasy in ape evolution. The overall pattern suggests that Pierolapithecus is probably close to the last common ancestor of great apes and humans.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Moya-Sola, Salvador -- Kohler, Meike -- Alba, David M -- Casanovas-Vilar, Isaac -- Galindo, Jordi -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2004 Nov 19;306(5700):1339-44.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Institut de Paleontologia M. Crusafont, Escola Industrial 23, Sabadell, Barcelona 08201, Spain. moyass@diba.es〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15550663" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Biological Evolution
;
Face/anatomy & histology
;
Facial Bones/anatomy & histology
;
*Fossils
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*Hominidae/anatomy & histology/classification
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Locomotion
;
Phylogeny
;
Posture
;
Ribs/anatomy & histology
;
Skeleton
;
Skull/anatomy & histology
;
Spain
;
Spine/anatomy & histology
;
Thorax/anatomy & histology
;
Wrist/anatomy & histology
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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