Biological and Physical Anthropology Commons^™

Sacral Morphology Of Prehensile-Tailed Primates In Relation To Biomechanical Loading, Hannah Grace Showalter

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The few available comparative studies of prehensile tail anatomy in primates have established that several features of the caudal vertebrae are associated with adaptation to the increased loading of the tail during prehension. Given that the caudal vertebrae are anchored to the sacrum, it stands to reason that sacral morphology should also covary with tail prehensility. Convergent evolution of prehension in ateline and cebine primates and clear variation in the use of tails among taxa raises questions not only of how sacral morphology differs between prehensile and non-prehensile taxa, but whether different prehensile-tailed taxa evolved the same solutions to the …