Humeral morphology of the earliest apes

Abstract

KNOWLEDGE of the skeletal anatomy of early hominoids has been based on various skeletal parts of fossil apes from the Miocene of East Africa and Europe. Postcranial remains from the earlier apes of the Oligocene of Egypt consisted of a single ulna, a basal phalanx and a hallucial metatarsal^1–4. During 1977 a palaeontological expedition from the Cairo Geological Museum and Duke University recovered four new partial humeri attributable to these Egyptian apes. These specimens now provide the first evidence of humeral anatomy of Oligocene apes and permit a better assessment of primitive forelimb morphology and locomotor abilities of earliest hominoids.