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The Vcl Hypothesis Revisited: Patterns Of Femoral Morphology Among Quadrupedal And Saltatorial Prosimian Primates, Robert Anemone

Robert L. Anemone

The descriptive and functional morphology of the postcranium of the vertical clinging and leaping prosimians is of great interest in both adaptational and phylogenetic studies of extant and extinct primates. An analysis of patterns of femoral morphology among quadrupedal and saltatory living prosimians indicates the presence of at least two, and possibly three, distinct femoral adaptations to the demands of an arboreal, saltatory existence. Osteological measurements were taken on 277 postcranial skeletons representing eight prosimian families, with skeletal trunk length (Biegert and Maurer, Folia Primatol. 17:142–156, 1972) used as an estimator of body size in both bivariate and multivariate (discriminant …