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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Oct 21.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Commun. 2015 Oct 6;6:8431. doi: 10.1038/ncomms9431

Figure 7. Phalangeal curvature in H. naledi.

Figure 7

Above, proximal and intermediate phalanges of the Hand 1 (a) second, (b) third (c) fourth and (d) fifth ray in lateral view (all to scale). Below, box-and-whisker plots of curvature in H. naledi (e) intermediate phalanges (n=14) and (f) proximal phalanges (n=11), quantified as the 1st polynomial coefficient (A) of the polynomial functions (y=Ax2+Bx+C) representing longitudinal shaft curvature of the dorsal surface. Vertical line represents the median value, boxes show the interquartile range, and whiskers extend to the highest and lowest values of each taxon, excluding outliers (dots). The H. naledi sample is shown in red and extant taxa that are not statistically distinct from this sample (p≤0.05 based on one-way ANOVA with Bonferroni correction) are shown in blue. “SKX Mem. 1” and “SKX Mem. 3” refer to the Swartkans phalanx sample from Members 1 and 3, respectively that can be attributed to either Au. robustus or early Homo. ‘UW 101-1635’ is a juvenile H. naledi proximal phalanx. H. naledi is unusual compared to most other hominins in having both strongly curved proximal and intermediate phalanges.