Abstract
Recently obtained material of the early Eocene primate Notharctus venticolus, including two partial skulls from a single stratigraphic horizon, provides the geologically earliest evidence of sexual dimorphism in canine size and shape in primates and the only unequivocal evidence for such dimorphism in strepsirhines. By analogy with living platyrrhines, these data suggest that Notharctus venticolus may have lived in polygynous social groups characterized by a relatively high level of intermale competition for mates and other limited resources. The anatomy of the upper incisors and related evidence imply that Notharctus is not as closely related to extant lemuriform primates as has been recently proposed. The early Eocene evidence for canine sexual dimorphism reported here, and its occurrence in a nonanthropoid, indicates that in the order Primates such a condition is either primitive or evolved independently more than once.
Full text
PDF
Images in this article
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Beard K. C., Dagosto M., Gebo D. L., Godinot M. Interrelationships among primate higher taxa. Nature. 1988 Feb 25;331(6158):712–714. doi: 10.1038/331712a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Fleagle J. G., Kay R. F., Simons E. L. Sexual dimorphism in early anthropoids. Nature. 1980 Sep 25;287(5780):328–330. doi: 10.1038/287328a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Gebo D. L. Foot morphology and locomotor adaptation in Eocene primates. Folia Primatol (Basel) 1988;50(1-2):3–41. doi: 10.1159/000156332. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Kay R. F., Plavcan J. M., Glander K. E., Wright P. C. Sexual selection and canine dimorphism in New World monkeys. Am J Phys Anthropol. 1988 Nov;77(3):385–397. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.1330770311. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]