Topic
Palaeopropithecus
About: Palaeopropithecus is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 21 publications have been published within this topic receiving 1302 citations.
Papers
TL;DR: In this article, the authors report definitive evidence of butchery, most probably associated with hunting, of giant extinct lemurs by early human settlers in Madagascar, showing classic signs of butchering.
127 citations
TL;DR: The results demonstrate that large body size in primates does not preclude exceedingly rapid dental development, and implies a pattern characteristic of Propithecus and other indrids—rapid dental development despite relatively prolonged gestation.
Abstract: When compared with their recently extinct relatives, living lemurs represent a mere fraction of a broad radiation that occupied unique niches in the recent past. Among living lemurs, indrids exhibit the fastest rates of dental development. This dental precocity is tightly correlated with rapid pace of postnatal dental eruption, early replacement of the deciduous teeth, high dental endowment at weaning, and relatively slow somatic growth. This pattern is in stark contrast to that seen in extant lemurids, where somatic development is highly accelerated and dental development is relatively slow. We report on the pace of dental development in one species of palaeopropithecid, the sister group to extant indrids. Like much smaller modern indrids, the chimpanzee-sized Palaeopropithecus ingens was dentally precocious at birth as evidenced by the advanced state of molar crown formation. This finding implies a pattern characteristic of Propithecus and other indrids—rapid dental development despite relatively prolonged gestation. Gestation length in this one species of subfossil lemur was likely greater than 9 months. Our results demonstrate that large body size in primates does not preclude exceedingly rapid dental development.
100 citations
TL;DR: It is shown that low levels of skull length sexual dimorphism (or none at all) characterize subfossil lemurs, and several possible explanations for this phenomenon are explored.
Abstract: Large body size has evolved repeatedly in the order Primates, not merely among anthropoids but also among prosimians. Whereas high degrees of sexual size dimorphism characterize many of the large-bodied anthropoids, this is not the case for extinct large-bodied lemurs. This paper uses finite mixture analysis and other techniques to ascertain just how much skull length dimorphism might be embedded in the generally unimodal distributions of skull lengths of giant extinct lemurs from single localities, and then compares these results with known skull length dimorphisms in extant lemurs and large-bodied catarrhines. We show that low levels of skull length sexual dimorphism (or none at all) characterize subfossil lemurs, and we explore several possible explanations for this phenomenon. Traditional explanations of sexual size dimorphism generally focus on body size or mating systems. These are not sufficient to explain the variation in sexual dimorphism that can be observed in the order Primates. © 1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
80 citations
TL;DR: Molar microwear analyses are used to examine the trophic distinctions among various taxa of Malagasy subfossil lemurs and suggest that Archaeolemur probably had an eclectic diet that differed regionally and perhaps seasonally.
64 citations
TL;DR: Results indicate that the habitat surrounding Ankilitelo during the late Holocene was similar to the succulent woodlands of modern southwestern Madagascar, which suggests that approximately 500yr BP, these semi-arid habitats supported a subfossil lemur community that included the highly-suspensory Palaeopropithecus, and deliberate slow-climber Megaladapis, as well as Archaeolemur, Pachylemur, and Daubentonia robusta.
39 citations
Related Topics (5)
Performance Metrics
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 1 |
| 2019 | 1 |
| 2016 | 1 |
| 2015 | 1 |
| 2014 | 1 |
| 2010 | 1 |