TY - JOUR
T1 - Craniomandibular Variation in Phalangeriform Marsupials
T2 - Functional Comparisons with Primates
AU - St Clair, Elizabeth M.
AU - Reback, Nicholas
AU - Perry, Jonathan M.G.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank the Smithsonian U.S. National Museum of Natural History, especially D. Lunde, E. Langan, N. Edmison, and J. Ososky, for facilitating access to skeletal and fluid-preserved specimens used in this study. We thank T. Harper and S. K. Welch for their efforts in collecting data during earlier stages of this project. We thank the Johns Hopkins University Department of Art as Applied to Medicine for funds to N. Reback that defrayed the costs of collecting data on phalangeriform muscles. For training in phylogenetic comparative methods we thank the 2011 AnthroTree workshop convened by CL Nunn (support for this workshop was provided by NSF BCS-0923791, and the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, NSF grant EF-0905606). We also thank J. Ledogar for sharing CT data that contributed to the visualization of muscle attachment. We thank the two reviewers who provided thoughtful contributions that improved the paper. Finally, we thank A. Hartstone-Rose and D. Marchi for the invitation to submit a paper to this special symposium volume.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
PY - 2018/2
Y1 - 2018/2
N2 - Phalangeriform marsupials have often been compared with primates because of similarity in the range of external morphology, ecological niches, and body size between the two radiations. We explore morphological convergence in the masticatory anatomy of strepsirrhine primates and phalangeriforms, through osteological measurements of the mandible and facial skeleton, and through dissection of the masticatory musculature, presenting new data on the arrangement and proportions of jaw adductors in phalangeriforms. Phalangeriforms and primates have a large number of shape differences in mandibular morphology. Despite these differences in shape on phylogenetic lines, dietary groups used to pool species of phalangeriforms and strepsirrhines also differed from each other in a range of shape variables. Notably, the striped possum (Dactylopsila), previously described as convergent with the aye-aye (Daubentonia), shares a number of features of mandibular shape with Daubentonia, and the exudate-feeding sugar-glider, Petaurus, shares shape features with gummivorous strepsirrhines. Petaurus also has long-fibered jaw adductors for its body mass, as would be expected for a species with a requirement for large gape. Phalangeriform species on the frugivore-folivore continuum were less clearly comparable to strepsirrhine species with similar diets. There are a number of significant dietary contrasts in osteological measurements, but in the masticatory muscles phalangeriforms did not meet all expectations based on available dietary data, highlighting the possible complexity of dietary adaptation in phalangeriform folivores. Anat Rec, 301:227–255, 2018.
AB - Phalangeriform marsupials have often been compared with primates because of similarity in the range of external morphology, ecological niches, and body size between the two radiations. We explore morphological convergence in the masticatory anatomy of strepsirrhine primates and phalangeriforms, through osteological measurements of the mandible and facial skeleton, and through dissection of the masticatory musculature, presenting new data on the arrangement and proportions of jaw adductors in phalangeriforms. Phalangeriforms and primates have a large number of shape differences in mandibular morphology. Despite these differences in shape on phylogenetic lines, dietary groups used to pool species of phalangeriforms and strepsirrhines also differed from each other in a range of shape variables. Notably, the striped possum (Dactylopsila), previously described as convergent with the aye-aye (Daubentonia), shares a number of features of mandibular shape with Daubentonia, and the exudate-feeding sugar-glider, Petaurus, shares shape features with gummivorous strepsirrhines. Petaurus also has long-fibered jaw adductors for its body mass, as would be expected for a species with a requirement for large gape. Phalangeriform species on the frugivore-folivore continuum were less clearly comparable to strepsirrhine species with similar diets. There are a number of significant dietary contrasts in osteological measurements, but in the masticatory muscles phalangeriforms did not meet all expectations based on available dietary data, highlighting the possible complexity of dietary adaptation in phalangeriform folivores. Anat Rec, 301:227–255, 2018.
KW - adaptation
KW - diet
KW - mastication
KW - muscle
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85040684251&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85040684251&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/ar.23717
DO - 10.1002/ar.23717
M3 - Article
C2 - 29330956
AN - SCOPUS:85040684251
SN - 1932-8486
VL - 301
SP - 227
EP - 255
JO - Anatomical Record
JF - Anatomical Record
IS - 2
ER -