Reassessment of the phylogenetic relationships of the late Miocene apes Hispanopithecus and Rudapithecus based on vestibular morphology
Urciuoli, Alessandro (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)
Zanolli, Clément (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Université de Bordeaux)
Almécija, Sergio (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)
Alba, David M.. (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)
Beaudet, Amélie (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)
Dumoncel, Jean (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Université de Toulouse)
Morimoto, Naoki (Kyoto University. Graduate School of Science. Laboratory of Physical Anthropology)
Nakatsukasa, Masato (Kyoto University. Graduate School of Science. Laboratory of Physical Anthropology)
Moyà Solà, Salvador (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)
Begun, David R. (University of Toronto. Department of Anthropology)

Data:	2021
Resum:	Late Miocene great apes are key to reconstructing the ancestral morphotype from which earliest hominins evolved. Despite consensus that the late Miocene dryopith great apes Hispanopithecus laietanus (Spain) and Rudapithecus hungaricus (Hungary) are closely related (Hominidae), ongoing debate on their phylogenetic relationships with extant apes (stem hominids, hominines, or pongines) complicates our understanding of great ape and human evolution. To clarify this question, we rely on the morphology of the inner ear semicircular canals, which has been shown to be phylogenetically informative. Based on microcomputed tomography scans, we describe the vestibular morphology of Hispanopithecus and Rudapithecus, and compare them with extant hominoids using landmark-free deformation-based three-dimensional geometric morphometric analyses. We also provide critical evidence about the evolutionary patterns of the vestibular apparatus in living and fossil hominoids under different phylogenetic assumptions for dryopiths. Our results are consistent with the distinction of Rudapithecus and Hispanopithecus at the genus rank, and further support their allocation to the Hominidae based on their derived semicircular canal volumetric proportions. Compared with extant hominids, the vestibular morphology of Hispanopithecus and Rudapithecus most closely resembles that of African apes, and differs from the derived condition of orangutans. However, the vestibular morphologies reconstructed for the last common ancestors of dryopiths, crown hominines, and crown hominids are very similar, indicating that hominines are plesiomorphic in this regard. Therefore, our results do not conclusively favor a hominine or stem hominid status for the investigated dryopiths.
Ajuts:	Agencia Estatal de Investigación CGL2016-76431-P Agencia Estatal de Investigación CGL2017-82654-P Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad BES-2015-071318 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2017/SGR-86 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2017/SGR-116
Nota:	Altres ajuts: CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya
Drets:	Tots els drets reservats.
Llengua:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió acceptada per publicar
Matèria:	Inner ear ; Semicircular canals ; Evolution ; Fossil apes ; Hominidae
Publicat a:	Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 118, Issue 5 (January 2021) , art. e2015215118, ISSN 1091-6490

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2015215118
PMID: 33495351

Postprint 49 p, 33.3 MB

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