Inferring Dentition and Diet in Extinct Great Apes by Looking at Extant Great Apes
INTRODUCTION
Knowing the diet of extant primate taxon opens up the possibility of predicting a good deal about its morphology and natural history. Morphology and natural history of extant primates is also important in making accurate inferences regarding their dentition and diet. However, when it comes to extinct primate taxon making dentition and dietary inferences are challenging and the evidence available is indirect (Cuozzo, 2008). The purpose of this research is to address the inferences that can be made about dentition and diet of extinct great apes from the Miocene by looking at dentition and diet of extant great apes including the bonobo, chimpanzee and gorilla. These diverse groups of vanished Miocene apes first existed millions of years ago and later diversified into various forms before they became extinct around 1.4 million years ago (Teaford, 2002).
AIMS
Reviewing the physical properties of food can be used to investigate the functional morphology of dentition.
The research project has three main objectives:
1. to discuss microwear and time of microwear on teeth of extinct great apes;
2. to discuss changes in habitat and environmental variability, nature of diet and dietary changes, and nature of and reliance on fallback foods of extinct great apes; and
3. to interpret the various studies inferring dentition and diet in extinct great apes.
RESEARCH JUSTIFICATION
While the discovery of Australopithecus afarensis made many researchers emphasize bipedalism in human origin scenarios, there is much less attention given to dietary roles in ecology and early hominid evolution. Diet is an important parameter that underlin...
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I visited the Sacramento Zoo during the afternoon of April 21, 2017. The weather was wonderful, sunny, warm, and there was a slight breeze. It got a bit more breezy the longer I was there. Visiting the zoo to observe primates allowed me to become a little more aware of how primatologists study primates. Even though I’ve been to many different zoos several different times, I never realized how many primates were associated with the zoos, as well as the variety of primates in the zoos. The Sacramento Zoo has eight different primates, all in different classifications, superfamilies, or subfamilies. While observing the Chimpanzees, White-Handed Gibbon, Mongoose Lemur, White-Faced Saki, and the Wolf’s Guenon I could see the differences
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The species A. afarensis is one of the better known australopithecines, with regards to the number of samples attributed to the species. From speculations about their close relatives, the gorilla and chimpanzee, A. afarensis’ probable social structure can be presumed. The species was named by Johanson and Taieb in 1973. This discovery of a skeleton lead to a heated debate over the validity of the species. The species eventually was accepted by most researchers as a new species of australopithecine and a likely candidate for a human ancestor.
Bipedalism had many advantages, but it also had many disadvantages and provided dangers to early hominids. Some of these disadvantages included i...
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The idea that humans could possibly have evolved from apes was thought impossible until about 150 years. Charles Darwin, an English naturalist and geologist, best known for his contribution to evolutionary theory, stated “humans evolved from an apelike ancestor” (1). Still after Darwin’s theories, many people still doubted the chances of this being true. Just in the past decade have scientists reached a general agreement about the evolutionary relationships between humans and apes. DNA evidence indicates that chimps and bonobos are more closely related to humans than they are to gorillas! Technically humans are a kind of great ape, and that is why throughout the article Smuts will refer to apes as forest apes.
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The increase in brain size may be related to changes in hominine behavior (See figure 3). The third major trend in hominine development is the gradual decrease in the size of the face and teeth. According to the Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia ’98, the fossil evidence for direct ancestors of modern humans is divided into the category Australopithecus and Homo, and begins about 5 million years ago (See figure 1). Between 7 and 20 million years ago, primitive apelike animals were widely distributed on the African and, later, on the Eurasian continents (See figure 2). Although many fossil bones and teeth have been found, the way of life of these creatures, and their evolutionary relationships to the living apes and humans, remain matters of active discussion among scientists.
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