Evolution of Grasping Among Anthropoids
doi: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2008.01582.x Evolution of grasping among anthropoids E. POUYDEBAT,* M. LAURIN, P. GORCE* & V. BELSà *Handibio, Universite´ du Sud Toulon-Var, La Garde, France Comparative Osteohistology, UMR CNRS 7179, Universite´ Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris 6), Paris, France àUMR 7179, MNHN, Paris, France Keywords: Abstract behaviour; The prevailing hypothesis about grasping in primates stipulates an evolution grasping; from power towards precision grips in hominids. The evolution of grasping is hominids; far more complex, as shown by analysis of new morphometric and behavio- palaeobiology; ural data. The latter concern the modes of food grasping in 11 species (one phylogeny; platyrrhine, nine catarrhines and humans). We show that precision grip and precision grip; thumb-lateral behaviours are linked to carpus and thumb length, whereas primates; power grasping is linked to second and third digit length. No phylogenetic variance partitioning with PVR. signal was found in the behavioural characters when using squared-change parsimony and phylogenetic eigenvector regression, but such a signal was found in morphometric characters. Our findings shed new light on previously proposed models of the evolution of grasping. Inference models suggest that Australopithecus, Oreopithecus and Proconsul used a precision grip. very old behaviour, as it occurs in anurans, crocodilians, Introduction squamates and several therian mammals (Gray, 1997; Grasping behaviour is a key activity in primates to obtain Iwaniuk & Whishaw, 2000). On the contrary, the food. The hand is used in numerous activities of manip- precision grip, in which an object is held between the ulation and locomotion and is linked to several func- distal surfaces of the thumb and the index finger, is tional adaptations (Godinot & Beard, 1993; Begun et al., usually viewed as a derived function, linked to tool use 1997; Godinot et al., 1997).
[Show full text]